


The Umbrella Initiative

by zabjade



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2020-11-01 07:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20811260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zabjade/pseuds/zabjade
Summary: Everything changed after Maggie Walsh used an experimental virus on her soldiers and her creation. Now Buffy and Spike are seeking answers about the G-virus and The Umbrella Corporation while on the run from Glory and her minions.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I based part of Spike's Restless dream on this wonderful work by Myrabeth: [Cheese](https://myrabethfanfic.wordpress.com/2019/09/03/cheese/) Her stuff is amazing and deserves all of the comments/reviews. She also made the amazing banner for this story. Take a look around her site.

Walsh gazed down at the ampule of purple liquid in her hand. Such a small thing, but it would be a catalyst for change. And the next step in completing her special project.

She looked up from the ampule to the married pair of scientists who had brought it to her. Annette and William Birkin. She’d met them in college, years ago. She’d gone on to work for the military while they’d started working for The Umbrella Corporation. They’d kept in touch over the years, trading notes and research materials.

“The G-virus,” Annette announced proudly. “The DNA and tissue samples from Subject 17 turned out to be exactly what we needed. The other demons refer to vampires as halfbreeds, but all previous samples were usually more one than the other. Seventeen is a perfect balance. With that virus regulated by your control chips, we should be able to produce super soldiers of incredible power.”

“Should be able to,” Walsh murmured, gazing back down at the ampule in her hand. “Let’s test it out, shall we?”

First on some of her more promising soldiers. And then…. She looked over her shoulder at her creation. Then it would be time to awaken Adam.

**...**

He’d always been something of a heavy sleeper, but the thudding of heavy footsteps was just enough to rouse Spike. He kept his eyes closed, using scent and hearing to follow the intruder’s progress. The scent was peculiar, like something he’d never smelt before while still being somewhat familiar, though not at all like anyone he’d personally met. He felt the telltale swish of displaced air, reaching up to grab a thick, meaty wrist without even opening his eyes.

“From the sound of those massive mud flaps, I’d peg you as a demon. Which means you’re in for a world of…,” he opened his eyes to get a look at the intruder, “pain.”

Huh. Well, that was something you didn’t see every day, wasn’t it? The ugly bugger looked as if some madman had slapped together a hodgepodge variety of demons with random human and robot bits. That explained the odd scent.

Frankenstein’s mismatched wankerborg just smiled at him, a rather hideous expression, honestly. “Hello… Father.”

Father? What? Spike sat up on the coffin he’d been sleeping on, his blanket falling to the side. “Sorry, mate, but you’ve the wrong bloke. Fairly certain I’d remember shagging whatever eldritch horror birthed you, no matter how drunk I was at the time.”

“I am Adam, the creation of Dr. Walsh. There is no genetic link between my ‘mother’ and myself, nor the two of us, however –”

“However, I’m not interested,” Spike interrupted, standing up and circling to the side of his unwelcome guest. Walsh. Of course that bitch had something to do with this. “So you can just see yourself ou–”

A large, greenish hand flashed out and grabbed him by the shirt, lifting him up off the floor.

“There is no genetic link, Father, but your DNA is part of the virus used to bring me life. That makes you a viable host for the larvae.”

“Larv–”

He was pulled forward, and Adam’s mouth was over his, something writhing and pressing against his lips. Something forced its way in. Slimy. Wriggling. Some _thing_… things… choking off unneeded air as they squirmed, one after another, down his throat.

He struggled, kicking out at the creature holding him. He was vaguely aware of his shirt tearing, but the other arm was around him, holding him tight.

Then it was over, and he was dropped to the ground. What was…? Oh, god, what had…? He couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Didn’t need air, but he needed to breathe. Made him feel….

“Rest for now, Father. You should be able to survive the maturation process. Soon enough, we’ll be able to create an army.”

Sounds of footsteps fading away. And then he was alone.

Spike forced himself onto his knees, sucking in a gasp of air. His chest felt tight. Wrong. Something was wrong. Something…. He brought a shaking hand up to his mouth and wiped away blood. It had split a little at both corners when those… those _things_….

He struggled up to his feet, panting for breath. The slayer. Had to find…. Walsh had made that bastard. The slayer hated that bitch almost as much as he did, now she’d shown her true colors and tried to off Buffy. Good on Walsh, there, but damn the bitch. That was _his_ slayer. His to kill. His to….

Had to find the slayer. Couldn’t kill Adam on his own, but the slayer, she’d help. She’d….

He coughed, wet and painful. There was blood. Then he staggered forward, heading out to find the slayer.

**...**

Buffy was laying on her bed, staring up at the dorm room ceiling while thoughts swirled around in her head. Oz was back and hadn’t gone all wolfy for the full moon. But Willow liked Tara, now. Willow was….

It didn’t really change anything, but Buffy felt… weird. She’d been sharing a room with Willow. They’d been all naked around each other, and Willow was… Buffy frowned in confusion. Willow had been with Oz and was all conflicted now that he was back. And there had been that whole Xander thing. Maybe she liked both guys and –

There was a thud against the door, then a blanket wrapped Spike slammed it open, staggering inside.

_We’ve really got to revoke that invitation, _she thought vaguely as she jumped up to her feet. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Creature…. Bitch…. _Things_!” Spike panted out raggedly.

The blanket fell, and a strange numbness hit Buffy like a brick. _Oh, god._ His eyes had a wild, hunted look to them, and his face…. There was blood all around his mouth. Something had happened to the chip. He was feeding again.

Her body moved automatically, sending her forward, one leg lashing out. Spike didn’t try to fight back or even dodge. He took the hit and crumpled to the floor in a shaking heap. That wasn’t…. What the hell was going on?

“Spike?”

She knelt down beside him. This close up, she could see that something had torn his mouth at both corners. He coughed, an awful, wet, gurgley sound, and a fresh spill of blood bubbled up to slide down his chin. His blood. His face was covered in his own blood.

“Walsh,” he whispered when the coughing stopped. “Sh-she made…. Adam. D-did som’ing t-to….”

“Did what? What happened, Spike? Did you see Walsh? Where is she?”

Riley had been obsessed with finding Maggie ever since she’d vanished. He wanted answers. Buffy did, too.

“Not Walsh…. Adam. She made…. He did.”

She didn’t get a chance to ask for a better explanation than that. Spike’s entire body went rigid before going into convulsions. And then….

There was a horrible wet and meaty tearing sound. Blood was everywhere. All over her, along with thicker bits of… _stuff_. There was a weird sort of stinging sensation in her cheek. She reached up and pulled something out. A small sliver of bone. There had been a piece of someone else’s bone in her cheek. Not exactly the first time that had happened, but….

She got to her feet and looked down at Spike. Not dusty, so not dead. But he looked like he should have been. His ribcage and the flesh above it looked like it had been torn apart from the inside. She could see his heart, exposed and making little shivery motions. Huh. It didn’t beat, but it clearly did _something_. Maybe that was how vampires could….

There were _things_ all around Spike. Pulsating, writhing _things_ that were shifting and growing at an impossible rate. If she didn’t do something soon, they might end up too big to easily handle.

She didn’t even stop to think. She stomped on one of the creatures while reaching for another and tearing it in half. Within minutes, she’d managed to kill them all. That just left Spike to deal with, and there was no way she’d be getting any answers out of him in his current state.

“Desperate times, desperate measures,” she muttered with a sigh.

Then she retrieved a knife from her under-the-bed weapons cache before carefully cutting into her arm.

**...**

“Spiritus… spirit,” Willow said as she picked up her card.

It was dangerous, what she was doing. The enjoining spell was dangerous and volatile even without the changes she’d made to it. They should have just gone with the original version and left Spike guarding the door, safely out of Adam’s reach. But he wanted revenge for what had been done to him, and Buffy…. Well, she and Spike had been weirdly close ever since that whole exploding-in-their-dorm thing.

They’d all worked hard to keep him out of Adam’s clutches, which had led the cyborg demon/human hybrid to his backup plan of creating his own army of cyborg demon/human hybrids. And now here they were in the Initiative, joining with the vampire slayer and putting a portion of that power into a vampire.

Willow took a deep breath and handed the next card to Xander.

“Animus… heart.”

The next card went to Giles. Sophus, which was mind. Two more cards after that, when there should only be one. Show time. Willow picked up both cards. “Manus dextra… right hand.” And then there was one. The card for Spike. “And Manus Sinistra…. The left hand.”

...

He was within the mirror, an invisible observer as the slayer spoke to the Being using Tara’s form and voice. Their words faded as the reflection of the Tara-Being turned to him.

“Abomination,” she said, as if stating a simple fact. “The slayer is meant to walk alone. The friends were bad enough, but to imbue a vampire with a portion of her power?” She held up a card that said Manus Sinistra, but the image was gone. “What was taken should be reclaimed.”

She took his left hand, and it started to fade away while a picture of it slowly took shape on the card. He pulled his arm back, reversing the process. “Sorry, pet, but I’ve no time for this. Gotta be somewhere else. I’m supposed to be teachin’ the slayer’s mum how to play mahjong.”

As he turned away, her voice floated out behind him. “Just be back before dawn.”

Then he was stepping out of the mirror and into a small space within a wall. The table was already set up, a pitcher of lemonade waiting and the tiles spread out. He took his seat across from Joyce.

“Now, the rules of the game are –”

“Mom?”

“I’ll be back,” Joyce said with a smile. “Buffy needs me.”

He watched her get up and go to the hole in the wall. Then he looked back to the tiles, tuning out their conversation as he flipped one over. Manus Dextra was written along the top, and it showed a closed fist. He flipped another. Manus Sinistra, with an open palm. Two parts of one pair. `

“Sorry, Joyce,” he said, standing just as she made her way back to the table. “There’s something I have to do.”

He climbed a ladder along the wall until he came to a crawlspace above the ceiling. Several meters in, and there was another hole, this one looking down into a military command center. Captain Cardboard was there, along with the slayer. Her weapons bag was at her feet. That wasn’t going to do her any good, now was it?

He grabbed up a fishing pole and used it to snag the bag. Once it was up through the hole, he took all the weapons out before scooping handfuls of mud from his pockets into the bag. Then he lowered it down to again. No time to dally and watch, though. He’d things to do, and he was already running late.

He crawled on, the space becoming smaller and smaller until he wriggled out through a cracked rock in the middle of a desert. He could see her, off in the distance. The slayer. She was there with Tara and some sort of cave woman. His left hand tingled, and he suddenly knew who she was, what they were dealing with. Also the slayer. The very first one.

“You can’t keep it.” Tara’s voice from behind him, but it wasn’t her in there. It wasn’t her inside the one still talking to Buffy, either.

“Can’t or shouldn’t?” he asked, without looking at her. “Because if it’s the latter….” He turned to face her, everything tilting until he could look down and see the upside down image of Buffy and the first slayer. “All a matter of perspective, isn’t it?”

A bald man suddenly stepped between them, holding out a slice of cheese with a hole cut out the middle. He stuck the cut out bit to the left side of the cheese, squeezing it between his thumb and finger until it held fast. “The cheese is not diminished,” the man said solemnly.

Then he was gone, leaving Spike with the Tara-Being.

“The slayer is meant to walk alone.”

“She is….” He held out his left hand, and Buffy grasped it in her right.

“… not alone,” she finished.

They stood together, facing off against the First Slayer while Tara waited off to the side. In her other hand, Buffy held three cards, one each for Giles, Willow, and Xander.

“No… friends,” the First Slayer rasped out, finally speaking with her own voice. “No… partner. Just the kill. We… are… alone!”

The strange bald man appeared again, grinning and waving two slices of cheese, one of them the one with the hole in the middle. Just as suddenly as he’d shown up, he was gone again.

“Okay, that’s it,” Buffy declared. “I’m waking up now.”

**...**

Walsh walked through the remains of her lab. So much waste, but there was still hope of salvaging something from the wreckage. Not her career, though. That had been over the instant she’d gone into hiding after awakening Adam with the G-virus. Well, her military career, anyway.

She knelt down and picked up a familiar arm. There were other, larger, pieces of Adam strewn about, but this was all she would need. It was time to take The Umbrella Corporation up on its offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this a crossover between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Resident Evil games, specifically the second one. Neither of the main two player characters will be showing up and no knowledge of the games is needed. Anything that a reader unfamiliar with the games would need to know is also something that the Buffy characters would need to know.


	2. Chapter 2

_Now: _

_Death is your gift…._

The words swirled through Buffy’s head like the smoke from the fire. _Death is your gift._ How could death be a gift? Death…. Her mother had just died. That hadn’t been a gift. And before that….

The puma was back, resting his head on her knee. She absently reached out, stroking between its ears. Death was her gift. She was the slayer. It was right there in the name. Slayer. One who slayed. Slew. A killer. She killed, and she brought death to everyone around her.

The puma flickered out of existence for a moment, then was back, head still on her knee as it gazed at her. The eyes were a familiar, vivid blue. She frowned slightly. Pumas didn’t have blue eyes. They should have been yellow.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not the only one vision questing right now?” she murmured. “Having a nap while you’re supposed to be watching Dawn, huh? You are so busted, mister.”

He made an annoyed coughing sound at her before fading away again. Leaving her alone with the fire and the patiently, silently waiting vision guide who had taken the form of the First Slayer.

Buffy looked down at her hands. _Death is my gift,_ she thought, flexing her fingers. A rough tongue swept over them. The puma was back. She watched as he circled around to sit on the other side of the fire. His eyes were startlingly clear through the smoke and flames. The color shifted, becoming pale and a little watery. Vacant.

The wavering flames, drifting smoke, and the heat distorted her view, forming nightmarish shapes around those eyes. Just like…. She could almost see him. The way he’d been at the end.

Riley….

**...**

_Then: _

Ten hours ago, everything had been fine. Then Graham had shown up, saying that without the chip in Riley’s chest to regulate it, the virus that had been swimming in his veins for the past year was a ticking time bomb. That it was sheer luck that it hadn’t gone haywire in all the time since Riley had pulled that chip out when they’d fought Adam.

One little shot was all it would have taken to fix him. But it would have rendered the virus completely dormant. That would mean no more boosted strength and reflexes. No more fast healing.

Ten hours ago, Riley had rejected that shot. He’d run away and had tempted fate one time too many. He’d gotten hurt badly enough to make the virus go nuts trying to heal him. And now….

_My fault, _Buffy thought numbly. It was all her fault. She should have tried harder to make Riley feel strong and in control. She should have…. Should have….

Riley roared and started forward, intent on the vampire crumpled at her feet. The fact that Spike’s chip had fired meant Riley still counted as human, even if he didn’t look like it anymore. Most of his body was twice as big as it had started, bulging with lumps of ropey muscle and pulsing veins under oily, mottled skin. His right arm was even bigger, ending in a twisted claw with a giant red eye in the middle.

_Maybe Graham was wrong, _she thought even as she bent down to pick up the flamethrower Spike had risked himself to bring her. Maybe Riley could still be saved. Maybe….

The eyes on his face were still normal, even if the actual face around them was distorted. Watery blue. Vacant. As dead inside as the people he’d killed in his mindless quest to infect people with G-Virus larvae.

“Goodbye,” she whispered.

Then she started up the flame thrower.

Ninety seconds was barely any time at all. It was an eternity. It was all the time the flamethrower had before running out of fuel, but it was enough. Oily, mutated flesh turned red. Then white. Bubbles formed, then burst and oozed. The scent of burnt pork filled the air while the haze of flame and smoke obscured her view….

**...**

_Now: _

The smoke from the fire began to thin out, leaving her staring again at a pair of blue eyes. Vivid. Alert. Full of intelligence and life, even if the owner of them was undead. Or well, he was when he wasn’t randomly being a puma in her slayer vision quest.

Buffy took a slow, deep breath. “Death….”

“Is your gift,” the guide confirmed.

Death…. She closed her eyes. It had taken her months to come to terms with what had happened with Riley, but she’d finally accepted it. Walsh and Adam had destroyed him. She’d given what was left the only peace she could. Death. Loss. Peace.

“I understand,” she said quietly.

When she opened her eyes, both the guide and the fire were gone. The puma, too. She was all alone, out in the desert. She took another deep breath, and then she was off, running at full slayer speed back towards where she’d left Giles.

She’d teased him about it, but she’d known, right from the moment when she’d figured out who the puma was. Spike took protecting Dawn seriously. He wouldn’t have fallen asleep. Something had gone wrong.

And now she had to get to Spike before it was too late.

**...**

_Then:_

She ran, her body on autopilot as it hurtled through the nighttime streets of Sunnydale. She didn’t know where she was going. Just… _away_. Somewhere where she wasn’t. Except she was always there, no matter where she went. A new city. A new name. It didn’t matter. She was still herself. Still Buffy Anne Summers. Still the slayer.

She still brought death and destruction to everyone she cared about.

Images flickered through her mind as she ran. Angel gazing at her, eyes full of confusion, then hurt betrayal as she stabbed him and sent him through a portal into hell.

Riley staring at her with only a flicker of recognition in his eyes. A woman hanging from his twisted claw, her mouth torn at the edges just like Spike’s when he’d burst into her dorm room the year before.

Riley again, all hint of recognition gone as he lurched towards her. Towards Spike, helpless at her feet because he’d tried to fight the monster Riley had become. And then she’d…. 

_Don’t think, _she told herself. _Don’t think. Don’t feel. _She was the slayer. She was meant to be alone. She’d been killing people she cared about since she was fifteen. Friends from Hemery who had become vampires. Ford. Angel. Everything that had happened with Faith. And now…. She put on a burst of speed, still trying to outrun herself and her emotions.

Someone started cursing behind her, then that same person cried out in pain as a solid weight slammed into her back. Buffy hit the ground hard, pain exploding through her nose and chin as she skidded face first along the side of the road. Something snapped in her mind, the internal switch flipping from flight to fight. She bucked and twisted until she was on top of the person who had tackled her, pinning him to the ground.

Then she hit him.

_Never good enough,_ she thought as her fist slammed into flesh. _Never good enough, and everybody dies. So many people I couldn’t save. I turned Angel evil, and I couldn’t stop him. He killed so many people. He killed Jenny. My fault. All my fault. Riley was taken over by the virus. My fault, too. Those people he killed, they’re on my hands. My fault._

Each thought was punctuated by a double punch, one to the man beneath her and one to her own heart. She was a failure. She’d failed as a daughter and had driven her father away. She’d always been a terrible student. A terrible slayer, costing more lives than she saved. And a terrible girlfriend who drove good men to destruction.

“Load of bollocks, that,” Spike gasped out. “All rubbish. None of it your fault, pet. You just got left to clean up other people’s messes.”

Buffy stared down at him, for the first time consciously registering who she’d been hitting. He’d tackled her, which must have triggered the chip. Again. And then she’d started pounding on him while screaming out all the thoughts crowding her mind. One of his eyes was swollen shut and she’d smashed his nose. The skin had split in several places, including over his non-swollen eye and both cheeks. Blood from her own face dripped down onto his swollen and split lip. She watched, mesmerized, as his tongue swept out to collect the blood.

She wanted to hit him for it. To be utterly disgusted. Instead, she wiped her hand over her face before pressing it against his mouth. He stared at her for a moment out of his good eye, then that cool, pink tongue was lapping against her skin, making her feel….

She jerked away, crawling backwards a few feet on her hands and feet before dropping down onto her butt. She’d forgotten about it after Graham had shown up with his Riley bombshell, but now it all came back. Ever since the enjoining ritual, there had been some kind of weird dream sharing going on between her and Spike. She’d gone to sleep thinking about him while he’d been taking a nap in the basement. She could have disrupted his dream, but at first, she’d thought it was just a basic sparring fantasy. She’d stayed there, a little mouse in the corner, watching while a version of her and Spike fought each other. Watched while the two of them kissed. Listened when he said….

“You must be loving this,” she said bitterly. “What happened to Riley.”

Spike slowly sat up, reaching into his pocket for something to wipe his own blood off his face. Then he spoke. “Never exactly been a fan of the Tin Soldier, and can’t say I’m going to miss the wanker any, but all this?” He shook his head. “Hell if I know why, but you cared about him. Wouldn’t wish having to kill a loved one on someone I… work with.”

Oh, god. Buffy pulled her knees up and rested her head against them. She’d been hoping that she’d been wrong. That Spike’s dream hadn’t meant anything more than the ones she’d had a few times about him after he’d crashed Parent-Teacher night back in high school. There was no denying it, though, not with Spike’s awkward “save” there.

“You mean someone you think you love.” She meant it to come out angry and accusatory, but she just couldn’t manage it. She was just too tired, and fighting off the urge to giggle like a crazy person.

_Like? s_he thought with a mental snort. _No like here, Buffster. You are a card carrying certified crazy person by this point._ A rubber room actually sounded pretty nice at the moment. Or even a place like the one her parents had tossed her into when she’d tried to tell them about her calling.

“Now see here, you,” Spike snapped, trying to scowl at her while not being able to look her in the eye, “just because a bloke lives in your basement and is friends with your mum and little sis doesn’t mean –”

She lost the battle. Laughter spilled out of her, and it wouldn’t stop. It kept coming and coming, even when the crying started.

“It fits,” she sobbed out against her raised knees. “Oh, god, it fits. I’m not good enough for Angel or Riley. Only a monster could love me.”

“Enough of that, now, pet.” Spike was suddenly there, right hand under her chin to lift her head while his left closed around the cross dangling from the chain around her neck. The cross she’d put on after seeing his dream. “Both your exes turned into monsters through their own doing, and they couldn’t love you after that, neither of them. Me, though? I can love you no matter, because my ego isn’t so big that I can’t see around it. And I’m no monster. Not all of me, anyway.”

He let go of the cross, revealing a completely undamaged palm.

She stared, dumbfounded. “What…? How…?”

“Only works for the left hand. Still undead and all, but no reaction to sunlight or holy objects. It’s another leftover bit from the enjoining ritual, along with sensing each other’s locations and the dream shar–” He broke off and stared at her for a moment, then murmured, “So that’s how it is, is it? You saw….” He shook his head. “Don’t matter how, cat’s out the bag either way.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair before sitting down beside her. “You’re going to mourn, and you’re going to feel awful about what you had to do. Nothing either of us can do about it. But there are things you have to hear, even if you aren’t ready for them, yet. Riley was gone before you even picked up that flamethrower. He was doomed the moment he refused that shot, and it’s nothing to do with you. He couldn’t stand the thought of not being stronger than you. Couldn’t handle not being the big, strong cowboy with you as his damsel in distress. Wasn’t man enough to just be who he is.”

“Not man enough to be love’s bitch?” Buffy whispered, staring at her knees.

She felt strange and kind of floaty. Like she was hovering above the pool of grief and self-loathing. She was going to eventually fall right back into it, but for now…. She glanced over at Spike in time to see his lips twitch into a slight smile. They were still puffy, but he’d healed a bit.

“Something like that,” he said.

Then his expression turned serious and he grabbed her cross again. With his right hand. There was smoke. Sizzling. The awful stench of burning flesh. _Oh, god, no. No, no, no._

“What the hell are you doing?” she yelled, grabbing his hand and pulling it away. The chain broke, leaving the cross in his hand. She forced it open and flung the necklace away. “What the hell was–”

He was staring at her intently. Had his eyes always been that vivid a shade of blue? The one that had been swollen shut was still in bad shape, but he could apparently open it now.

“Listen to me, Buffy Anne Summers,” he said, voice quiet but firm. “You are the slayer. Chosen One, bloody The. You are strong. You are fierce. Your life comes with more than its fair share of pain and tragedy. No one who can’t handle a bit of pain, physical or emotional, deserves you. You’re also human, not a bloody robot. Anyone who demands that you be less than you are doesn’t deserve you.”

He took a deep breath and pulled her against him, while also leaning on her shoulder. His burned hand was still clutched in both of hers. She sat there stiffly, mind blank as she tried to understand what Spike was saying.

“Not going to try to court you while you’re grieving. Not that daft, am I? But I’m going to be the one who’s strong enough to lean on you when need be and who can be there for you to lean on when you need it.”

Someone to lean on… who wasn’t afraid to lean on her? She could still feel that pit waiting under her, ready to swallow her up. _I should push away, _she thought. Push away and deal with what she’d done. She’d killed the man she loved. She’d….

She let herself relax against Spike. Neither of them fell over. They just sat there, supporting each other.

It was enough. For now, it was enough. She’d deal with everything else later.

**...**

_Now:_

Someone opened the door to her house before she got to it, then closed it after they were all inside. Buffy wasn’t really sure who; she wasn’t paying attention to anything other than the tightly wrapped bundle slung over her shoulder. The windows were already covered, so she settled Spike on the couch and started unwrapping him. First the sleeping bag, then the blanket.

God, he looked horrible. Even worse than when she’d pounded on him after the mess with Riley. His face was a swollen mass of blood and bruising, and there were holes all over his chest and stomach. It looked like Glory had stabbed her fingers into him.

One eye opened partially and there was a vague twitch of his mangled lips that might have been an attempt at a smile. “What is it with you superpowered blondes trying to destroy my face?” he whispered hoarsely.

“Hey, you can’t really blame us. It’s not our fault you’re too pretty.”

That earned her a laugh, but it ended in a groan of pain. “Bloody hell, woman, don’t make me laugh. Bitch went after the ribs a bit, too.” Before she could apologize, he reached out and grabbed her hand. “Didn’t tell. Nibblet’s safe for now.”

“I know,” she said softly. It had never even occurred to her that he might tell. Even if he hadn’t genuinely cared about Dawn, he’d have never betrayed her like that. “You rest, and we’ll get you fixed up, okay? It’s your turn to lean on me.”

He nodded slightly, and she leaned down to press a gentle kiss to his forehead, one of the few places that wasn’t covered in wounds. “You did good. Rest now.” Then she tucked him in with the blanket before turning to face the others.

Giles, Willow, Xander. Even Anya. They’d all followed her into danger to rescue Spike while Tara had stayed behind to protect Dawn. None of them could survive what Spike had endured.

“Is he going to be okay?” Dawn asked. She was hugging herself, looking young and scared.

_That’s because she _is _young and scared. _Buffy took a deep breath, then let it out and forced a smile for her sister’s sake. “Yeah, he’s going to be fine.”

“That’s all well and good for Spike, but what about the rest of us?” Anya asked.

Buffy wasn’t sure about anyone else, but the ex-vengeance demon had figured it out. If Glory had gone after one of them, what would stop her from coming after the rest of them?

“We’re going to be fine, too,” she said quietly. “We’re going to get Spike better and then….” One of the scabby little minions had let it slip during the rescue. Glory had a time limit. And she couldn’t sense the key, or she’d have found Dawn by now. “We’re going to split into two groups and get the hell out of Sunnydale.”

With that, she headed up the stairs to get the reusable blood draw kit she’d been keeping in her bedroom for the past year.


	3. Chapter 3

“Thanks, Pidge,” Spike mumbled as Dawn handed him a nearly full gallon jug.

Seven pints of blood. One each from everyone but the girl herself and her big sis, with the latter donating two and the former being declared too young. His lips were too swollen to drink easily, which meant he’d probably end up spilling at least a bit all over himself. Terrible waste, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Before he could start drinking, though, the little bit plonked a long, bright pink silly straw into the jug. Spike stared at it for a moment, at the curves that spelled out the word “cool.” Then he glanced at Dawn. She was trying to fight them back, but couldn’t hide the tears in her eyes. It hurt like a wicked bitch, but he managed a raised brow and slight smirk for her.

“Appreciate the sentiment, even if it is less than dignified.”

That earned him a wobbly little smile. “Dude, I once saw you run into a wall because you were too busy rambling to watch where you were going. You and dignity are rarely on speaking terms.” Then the smile fell. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s my fault you got hu–”

“Enough of that, now, Bit,” he said gruffly. What was it with Summers women, always taking the blame? _Suppose it makes sense, _he thought. _What, with her being made from the slayer and all. _“Hellbitch is gonna do what the hellbitch is gonna do. And whatever it is she does, it’s on her. Not you.”

“But–”

“But nothing. Evil, soulless vampire here, remember? No reason to be all goody-goody and lie to make you feel better. If I say it’s not your fault, then it’s not your bloody fault. Understood?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, and the smile came back a bit. “I… um, I’m supposed to get cookies and orange juice out of the kitchen for everyone.”

“Off with you, then, Nibblet, I’ve some serious drinking to get to.”

Once she was out of the room, he gingerly wrapped his battered mouth around the straw, letting his eyes flutter closed. He heard the others come into the room, but he was barely aware of them as they started hashing things out. There was only the blood. Fresh. Human. Still warm and freely given.

Salt and the copper tang of new pennies. Sugar and smoked cinnamon. Moonlight and daisies. Buttered rum with a hint of strawberry. Leather and wood, and a tinge of whiskey. And shot through it all was sunlight and wildflowers paired with the distinctive spice of a slayer. An odd thing it was, all that blood from so many different donors. Odd, but good, both the flavor and the sentiment.

_Could be the lot of them just want to make sure you’re strong enough to help fight off Glory if need be,_ his inner cynic pointed out. His inner romantic was a wee bit stronger, though, and told that bit to sod off. He was part of the group. He was accepted. He–

“I don’t know about this splitting up idea, Buffy.”

Willow’s voice disrupted his thoughts, and he opened his eyes to look around. The various Scoobies were sat about the living room, Anya and Rupert in the armchairs while the others, except for Buffy, were on cushions on the floor. The slayer was pacing, absently nibbling at an Oreo. They’d been talking all this time while Spike rested on the couch, drinking his blood. Something about Willow’s tone had caught his attention. Scarpering off to parts unknown seemed a right bloody good idea to him, though apparently not to her.

“Maybe… maybe we should go to L.A. and stay with Angel.”

_Bloody buggering fuck!_ Spike nearly choked on a mouthful of blood. She couldn’t sodding well be serious, could she? A look at her face showed she was. All anxious and earnest. For such a smart girl, Red could be bloody stupid at times. Going to Angel was a terrible idea, and not just because he was a smug wanker. Dawn had never much cared for his grandsire, and the feeling had always seemed to be mutual. Angel would sell her out in a heartbeat if he decided it was for Buffy’s “own good.”

“No!” Buffy snapped out before Spike had a chance to say anything. “We are _not_ running to Angel. And don’t call him again about things that aren’t his business.”

Willow flinched as if she’d been slapped. “B-but, Buffy–”

“No. He’s not part of this. He’s not one of us. And this isn’t up for debate. We’re splitting up into two groups and getting out of here. Dawn is coming with me, Giles, and Spike. You guys get to figure out the rest of the details while I pack up Spike’s things. Then we’ll all gather our stuff and get ready to get the hell out.”

Then she turned and stormed away towards the basement.

**...**

Once, the basement had had an open floor plan. Now, though, the stairs led into a basic laundry and storage area with the rest sectioned off with some walls and a door. Buffy, Xander, and Spike had spent a day setting it all up after The Naked Vampire Incident. Mom had put her foot down, insisting that even if he didn’t sleep naked, Spike should have an actual bedroom if he was going to keep staying with them.

Buffy let herself into the room and looked around. There was a twin bed in the far corner. A nightstand was beside it with a reading lamp and a book. A comfy armchair was set up next to it so he could use the lamp to read from either it or the bed. On the other side of the room there was a weapon chest and a cheap wardrobe.

_Time to stop stalling,_ she thought, crossing over to the wardrobe. There was a backpack and a small duffel at the bottom. She’d fill the backpack with weapons, but first….

Black jeans, black T-shirts, a couple of red dress shirts, and…. Buffy felt tears prick at the back of her eyes and her mouth curve up into a smile. The Fish Shirt. She carefully pulled the silk dress shirt out of the wardrobe and walked over to sit on the edge of the bed. It was a good quality shirt of a color that had been up for debate ever since Mom got it for Spike. It had been dubbed “The Fish Shirt” after the first argument.

_“You need a bit more color in your outfits,” Mom insists. “That’s a lovely shade of salmon that’s very in this season.”_

_“What are you on about, woman? It’s not dusky enough to be salmon. It’s bloody well _pink, _and you know it.”_

_“It’s actually more of a… peach, I think,” Buffy offers up, wanting in on things. _

_Spike shoots her a glare that’s honestly more playful than menacing. “Not helping, Slayer.” _

She’d only seen him wear it twice. Once when Mom had come home after the scan revealing her cancer. And then…. The last time had also been the last time she’d seen Angel. A little over a week ago at Mom’s grave.

**...**

_Then:_

She could feel him there, waiting in the shadows as the sun set. Sensing vampires wasn’t exactly her strongest skill, but she didn’t need it in this case. She was always aware of him. An odd little tug in a certain direction if he was far away. A solid feeling of presence when he was nearby, like a cat had taken up residence in her awareness and made itself at home. It was… comforting. Especially now.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For the flowers. Mom would have….”

_…loved them. Mom would have loved them._ She couldn’t say the words. Couldn’t force them through her throat. Would have. Loved. Past tense. Her mother was past tense. She fought back the tears prickling at her eyes. She had to be strong.

“She was a good lady,” Spike said softly, “your mum. Always treated me like a person. Not just some kind of freak.”

The tears spilled down her cheeks while a wobbly smile tugged at her lips. Her mother and Spike had been friends. He’d known her on a different level from most of them, not a child or even surrogate child. Buffy could talk to him, share stories without having to share the role of grieving daughter. And he didn’t look at her the same way her sister and friends did. He didn’t expect her to be strong all the time.

“Not ‘just’ some kind of freak, huh?” she said as she turned to look at him, her voice a little raspy. She saw a bit of pink between his coat and black T-shirt. He was wearing The Fish Shirt. She could tease him about it, but she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to even acknowledge it. He’d worn it for Mom, not her.

“Have to turn in my punk card if I wasn’t at least a bit of one, wouldn’t I?” He smiled for a moment, then it faded away, along with Buffy’s own. “And, um, the whole vampire thing. But there’s more to me than all that. She saw that. Meant a lot to me.” He was quiet for a bit before the smile came back. “Also, woman wielded a mean ax. Gotta respect that.”

“Too bad she didn’t do a better job with it.”

Buffy was already whirling around to face the speaker, ready to fight, when she recognized the voice. Angel? What was Angel…? She stared at him blankly for a moment, trying to understand why he was there. He never just showed up for a visit. Something had to be wrong, either down in L.A. or there in Sunnydale. Some new crisis that she had to take care of.

_No. No, no, no, no._ She stumbled back a step, shaking her head. She couldn’t deal with this. There was already too much. She couldn’t….

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Angel asked, distracting Buffy before the panic could fully take hold. He was glaring at Spike.

“Paying my respects, not that it’s any business of yours.”

Spike’s fists were clenched at his sides, and Buffy had the sick certainty that there was going to be a fight. Right there. At her mother’s freshly filled grave.

“You have ten seconds to leave, or I’ll –”

“You’ll what? Puff yourself up and try to fling your weight around?” Spike shook his head in disgust. “Much as I’d love to put a fist right through that overly large forehead of yours, I’m not going to throw down. Not here. Not now. Not going to disrespect Joyce like that.” He looked over at Buffy, the anger in his eyes softening. “You need me, you know where to find me.”

Then he was striding away, leaving her alone with Angel. At her mother’s grave.

_Mom never liked Angel,_ she thought, still feeling numb. She _had_ liked Spike, though. She’d made hot cocoa for him when he’d been brokenhearted. They’d spent hours together watching their ridiculous soap operas. They’d even taken a six-week cooking course together. And….

_You need me, you know where to find me._ She did. Even without the connection between them, she knew where he was headed. Her house, to be with Dawn and the others.

“Buffy.” Angel’s hand was on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Willow called.”

“She doesn’t like you.” The words spilled out of her mouth.

The hand on her shoulder jerked away, and when Buffy turned to look at its owner, he looked confused. Maybe a little hurt and uncomfortable.

“I… I know I caused a lot of trouble and heartache when I…. I thought Willow had forgiven –”

“Mom. She doesn’t… _didn’t_…. Mom didn’t like you. She wouldn’t want you here.”

Past tense, not present.

“…oh.” Neutral voice. Blank expression. Mom hadn’t liked him. Had the feeling been mutual? “Buffy… she’s gone. She’s gone, and I’m sorry. You have to think of the living right now, and that includes you. What do _you_ want? What do you need?” He held out his arms towards her. “I’m here for you.”

_You need me, you know where to find me._ She turned again, towards the direction Spike had taken. She could still see him in the distance. What did she want? What did she need? She looked back at Angel, with his open arms. If she’d been alone when he’d shown up, would she have fallen into them, seeking some kind of comfort?

“What I need is for you to go home,” she said quietly. The arms fell, and he stared at her incredulously. His mouth opened, but she didn’t give him a chance to say anything else. “Go home, Angel. Please. Just… go home.”

She didn’t wait to see if he would or not. She ran after Spike, easily catching up since he hadn’t been going much faster than a power walk. That slowed to a comfortable amble when she got to him.

They walked that way together in silence for a few minutes before Spike stopped and gestured towards the sky. “She’s up there, you know. The great mums of the past look down on us from the stars.”

She gazed up, thinking about it for a moment. Up in the stars, huh? “You got that from The Lion King,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, what of it? Good movie, that.”

“One of Mom’s favorites.”

They continued on in silence for a few more minutes before Spike broke it again. “Well, what say we pick up a few pints of ice cream, kick out everyone but the nibblet, and watch your mum’s Disney collection?”

“I say….” The tears were back and her throat felt clogged. She cleared it. “I say that sounds like a great idea.”

**...**

_Now: _

Buffy ran her fingers over the silk, then used her other hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. There wasn’t time for this. She could grieve later, once Dawn was safe. She stood up and went back to the wardrobe, carefully putting the shirt in the duffel before shoving in a few pairs of jeans and T-shirts.

Clothes. Weapons. Spike was good on blood for now, but they’d need to pick some up some lamb from the butcher shop on the way out of town.

Right. Okay, that was everything Spike would need for now. She just needed to pack up her own clothes and weapons and make sure Dawn brought along what she’d need. And then they could go….

Buffy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She hated this. She was supposed to fight. To set herself between the Big Bad and the potential victims. But here she was, getting ready to run.

_It’s the only way, _she told herself. Glory was too strong. And even though her gift was apparently death, Buffy was more than just a killer. She was a protector. She’d protect them all.

She opened her eyes, then walked out of the room, striding towards the stairs. It was almost time to go.


	4. Chapter 4

She could see mountains through the window. Tall, snowcapped peaks drifting by in the distance. She should have been in school, but here she was, traveling east in an RV they’d borrowed from one of Spike’s poker buddies.

Dawn reached out, tracing random patterns on the window. She should have been in art class, painting something while daydreaming about the boy she liked. Then, at the end of the day, she’d go home and bake cookies with Mom and tell her about the day. But Mom was dead, and here she was, beyond the borders of her home state with Buffy, Spike, and Giles.

_Has anyone even noticed?_ she wondered. Would her classmates think she’d just dropped off the face of the world, or would they be told the same story Giles had spun for the principal? That she and Buffy would be going to England for a few months to recover from Mom’s death. That Dawn would be doing homework packets for the last few weeks of school and would take her finals during the summer.

She’d have to do the homework packets and makeup tests – assuming she survived – but they weren’t the ones going to England. Willow, Tara, Xander, and Anya were already there, having a Watchers’ Council funded European vacation. She smiled slightly, remembering what had happened when the Council had come to Sunnydale a few months earlier, trying to throw their weight around and withhold information about Glory.

_Buffy’s hands slam down on the table, cutting off the flow of words. “How dare you? I killed my boyfriend to keep everyone safe, and it’s not even the first time I’ve had to do something like that. How _dare _you come here and claim I’m not doing my job? And the vampire in my basement you’re bitching about? He’s done more to help and support me than you guys _ever _have, even before I kicked you out of my life. Slayer, fucking The. That’s me. The reason your little group even exists, and I’m not putting up with your bullshit. You can either go back to sitting around weaving baskets, or whatever the hell British people do so they aren’t being completely useless, or you can start jumping every time I say frog. Your choice, and you’ve got two minutes to decide.”_

The smile faded as her thoughts circled back to the current situation. Buffy had called up the Council and said frog. And now the whole Scooby Gang had left their homes. _All because of me…. It’s my fault…._

She took a slow, deep breath, then forced her gaze away from the window. Her sister was sitting across from her at the RV’s table, muttering swear words under her breath as she worked her way through a thick stack of papers. Dawn dug into her pocket, then slapped a dime down on the top paper.

“For your thoughts,” Dawn explained when Buffy just stared down at it.

“Uh-huh.” Buffy poked at the coin with her finger before looking up. “I thought that was supposed to be a penny.”

“Inflation.” That got a little bit of a smile. “So, what are you reading? Looks kind of intense. You know, based on all of the swearing.”

“Intense is definitely one way to describe it,” Buffy muttered. Then she leaned back in her seat with a grimace before sighing and rubbing at her face. “It’s a report from Graham. He, uh, dug up a bunch of info on the people responsible for the G-virus and sent it to me months ago. But,” she shrugged, “it sort of got put on the back burner because of the Glory stuff and….”

Mom. The word hung between them unspoken, as if not saying it would somehow mean that she hadn’t died. There were cultures that refused to speak the names of the dead. Maybe that was why. It was too painful.

“And now it’s on the front burner,” Dawn said quietly. On the front while Mom was pushed to the back. It wasn’t fair. Riley had been dead for months, and it had been his own damn fault he’d forced Buffy to kill him. He’d been mourned more than enough as far as she was concerned. Mom had only been…. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “And we have to stop them, because they could still be after Spike.”

Mom would be okay with the back burner if it meant keeping Spike safe. They’d been friends. And he’d been there for them. He’d let himself get beaten up for _her._ For one of Mom’s little girls.

“Yeah.” Buffy said softly, and there was more to it than just agreement about the bad guys being after Spike. “Anyway, not a lot to do right now, so I figured I’d read through this. Lots of gross stuff about leeches and something called the Progenitor Virus. It got used to make the T-virus, and then the G. Because, you know, someone was clearly too busy with all the mad science to pay attention to the ABC song during kindergarten.”

“That’s why mad scientists are always getting thwarted. No appreciation for the basics.”

That got her another smile, though it dropped pretty quickly. “These particular mad scientists are a big part of a pharmaceutical company based in Raccoon City, Missouri called The Umbrella Corporation. They’re into some really nasty stuff. The T-virus was supposed to make bioweapons. It does that, but it also turns living people into zombies and, uh, it reanimates the freshly dead into zombies.” She was quiet for a moment, thinking about Mom again. Dawn knew, because she was, too. Buffy took a deep breath. “They tweaked it a bunch, adding some of Spike’s DNA to make the G-virus. You’ve… you’ve seen what that does.”

Dawn shuddered, remembering how awful Spike had looked when Buffy had brought him to the house last year. She hadn’t really been there for that, but the monks had been pretty thorough. She remembered it all. His chest patched up with staples and duct tape, oozing blood. The frequent coughing that also involved blood. And the remains of the _things_ that had burst out of his chest.

Buffy had tried to hide them from her, but she’d seen. Just like she’d seen the ones that had come out of Riley’s victims. Those people had died. So had the things, and without any slayer assistance. They’d been all mangled and sickly compared to the ones from Spike.

And she’d seen Riley himself.

She reached forward and grabbed the papers, adding the much smaller stack of read ones onto the top. “I’ll read through it all and give you the Cliff’s Notes version.”

“Dawn–”

She shook her head, cutting Buffy off. “Let me do this. This is my kind of thing. Research… even when it’s all horrible and stuff…. It helps.”

Buffy sat quietly for a moment, just staring at her. Then she sighed. “Yeah, okay. You do the research thing. I’m….” Her gaze shifted, looking past Dawn and towards the RV’s small bedroom. “I’m going to check on Spike. Maybe get a little sleep.”

Dawn watched her sister head for the bedroom, quietly slipping through the door. Then she started to read.

**...**

She’d often joked that Spike could sleep through an explosion, but Buffy carefully eased the door closed before approaching the bed with nearly silent footsteps. Then she sank down to her knees beside the bed, her fingers reaching out to lightly brush against his sleep-tousled curls. The mussed hair made him look oddly vulnerable, especially with the bruises streaked across his face and the lips that were still slightly swollen.

Her fingers drifted down, not quite touching as they cataloged the injuries to his face and torso. The holes Glory had poked into him with her own fingers were mostly filled back in. _He’s getting better,_ she told herself firmly, fighting the urge to open up a vein for him. The blood she and others had given him right after the rescue had already done a lot for him, and he was healing. The lamb and expired hospital blood in the mini fridge would be enough for now.

She closed her eyes and just breathed in his scent for a moment. Leather and smoke. Something kind of like that scent in the air right before a thunderstorm. The cool, earthy smell all vampires seemed to have in common. He was here. He was safe.

She hadn’t been able to save Riley from his own terrible decisions and inferiority complex. She hadn’t been able to save her mom from the aneurysm. But she’d been able to rescue Spike from Glory. She would keep him safe. And she would keep Dawn safe, even if it meant being on the run for the rest of their lives.

Spike twitched slightly, letting out a soft whimper before muttering something that sounded like, “won’t tell.” Nightmare. She could wake him up, or….

She stood up and quickly took off her shoes before shimmying out of her jeans. Then she carefully climbed into the bed, trying to curl around Spike without jostling him too much. All she had to do was fall asleep while thinking about him, and she’d be in his dream, able to make herself a part of it or disrupt it. As she drifted off, she thought of the first time she’d purposely gone into his dreams.

**...**

_Then: _

Buffy stormed up the stairs, absolutely furious as her mother’s words echoed through her thoughts.

_“This is my house, young lady, and you are the daughter here, not the mother. My friends are my business, not yours. And there will be _no_ disinvites, unless it’s for Angel. You just gave that man access to my home without even asking me.”_

Mom didn’t want to discuss it any further? Fine. Mom didn’t want her going downstairs to “bother” Spike while he was sleeping? Also fine. She didn’t need to go downstairs to give the damn vampire a piece of her mind. She strode into her room, slamming the door closed behind her, then kicked off her shoes before flopping down on her bed. She _so_ wasn’t sleepy at the moment, but that wouldn’t be a problem. The little pebble on her nightstand would help with that. Willow had made the charm for her to help with trance work. It should work for this.

She took a deep breath, grabbed the charm, and closed her eyes, thoughts firmly on the freeloader in her basement.

One moment, she was in her bedroom, and the next she was in a weird, brightly lit room. She knew she was in a dream, and she refused to let it fully take shape around her, leaving just the brightly room with wispy figures standing over a metal table. A metal table with a very non-wispy and very naked Spike lying on it.

“What the hell is it with you always being naked?” she exploded. Of course. Of course he’d be having some weird, perverted sex dream. “Put some damn clothes on.”

He slowly sat up, a strange expression on his face that made her uneasy. It was almost like she could identify it, but didn’t quite want to. Then it was washed away by a lazy smirk. “Sorry, pet. My dream, my clothing choices. Same rules as for my bedroom.”

His bedroom. The one in her mother’s basement. The one Riley kept insisting Spike needed to move out of now that Adam had been destroyed. Riley had only met her mother once. Why should he get any kind of say in who lived in her house? Buffy shoved that uncomfortable thought aside and focused on why she was there.

“This has got to stop,” she said, crossing her arms and starting to pace, looking anywhere but at Spike. She lingered on one of the wispy figures for a moment, some of the details becoming a little clearer. Was that… a scalpel? She turned away, pushing aside the growing unease.

“What, you going to bed thinking of me and then going walkabout in my dreams all uninvited? Couldn’t agree more. Feel free to shove off.”

She scowled and turned towards him, keeping her eyes firmly on his face. “I mean all this,” she waved one arm in an encompassing gesture, “with you and my mom. It’s bad enough that you’re watching soaps and bad daytime TV with her, but now _cooking_ classes? Really? Why are you doing this? Is this some kind of sick game to you? Stringing my mom along so you can hold it over me or something?”

The words popped out, echoing what Riley had been saying lately.

They got her a snort of disgust and a raised brow. “Just a mite bit self-centered, are we? May have escaped your notice, pet, but the world doesn’t revolve around you. Did it occur to you that I’m ‘doing this’ because your mum is her own person, and that person happens to be my friend? Something that hasn’t seemed to have bothered you much until now. Someone been whisperin’ in your ear, have they?”

“I haven’t… that’s not….” She shook her head and looked away. Stupid vampire. Why did he always have to be so perceptive? But that didn’t mean Riley wasn’t perceptive, too. Sometimes someone on the outside could see more clearly. _On the outside…. Did I seriously just think of my own boyfriend as being on the outside of my life?_ She shied away from the uncomfortable thought and focused on Spike again. “I want you out of my house.”

“_You_ want, is it?” he said in a mocking tone. “And out of _your_ house? Funny, here I thought it was Joyce’s house. What exactly is your problem, here? Worried your mum’s gone dotty and needs to be protected from making her own choices? Wonder what she’d say to that.”

Buffy tried not to squirm. Mom hadn’t taken it well at all, insisting that she’d just keep inviting Spike back if Willow did a disinvite. And then all that stuff about Angel. Spike’s sudden laugh pulled her out of her thoughts. He’d stood up at some point and was right there, all naked and in her personal space. She scrambled back.

“You talked to her, first, didn’t you?” His eyes brightened with unholy glee. “That’s why you’re here in dreamland, isn’t it? Trying to convince me to leave on my own because Joyce told you where to stick it.” He laughed again, then went serious. “I’m not going to hurt her. Couldn’t, even if I wanted to, remember?” He tapped his head. “But I don’t want to. Didn’t even hurt her after Dru tossed me aside like yesterday’s rubbish, and that’s why you never bothered, in all that time, to have me disinvited.”

He was right. That was why. She’d known that Spike had developed a weird sort of respect for her mom after the ax thing. She’d known that he’d never have gone after Mom to get to her. And not just because he liked Mom. He would have considered it… tacky.

Maybe the problem wasn’t that Mom thought she knew more about vampires than Buffy did. Maybe the problem was Riley thinking he knew more about this particular vampire.

Buffy stared at the wispy figure with the maybe-scalpel, trying to put it all into perspective. Her mom had gone through a divorce, moved to a new town, had to deal with a child who she thought was some kind of delinquent. And then she’d found out the truth about her daughter and that her daughter’s boyfriend had turned into an evil monster…. And the next time she saw that monster, Buffy was inviting him to waltz right into the house. Into her mother’s house.

The wispy figure was becoming more clear as she stared at it. She could almost…. Oh, God. That was…. She knew, suddenly, just what that strange expression on Spike’s face had been. A mix of terror and relief. The wispy figure was Walsh, standing over the table he’d been lying on with a scalpel. She hadn’t barged in on some kind of weird sex dream. She’d disrupted a nightmare. One that could become all-too-real with Walsh still out there somewhere.

“Fine,” she said abruptly, turning to face Spike. “I’m not going to argue about you staying, but you are going to wake up now and pull your damn weight around the house.” He opened his mouth, but she interrupted before he could say anything. “Mom’s pissed off, so you have to watch chick flicks and eat ice cream with me. My room, twenty minutes from now. And don’t be late.”

And then she forced herself to wake up before he could respond.

**...**

_Now:_

She hadn’t come for him. She’d left him there.

She hadn’t come, but someone else had. He stared through swollen eyes at the two women. Glory and Walsh. The one with his blood still on her hands, and the other just waiting to get hers on him again. And there, behind them, was Adam, rebuilt and ready to…

He couldn’t breathe. His chest was too tight, and he couldn’t breathe. _Things_ writhed and scrabbled inside of him, clawing at his lungs, trying to wriggle out through the holes Glory had jabbed into him with her fingers. She laughed and clapped in childlike glee before darting forward, her nail pressing against his chest. Pressed and pressed, turning slightly, drilling a hole in his chest and he couldn’t breathe and….

“Seriously? Again with the naked? What’s up with that?”

Air that he didn’t physically need filled his lungs as he took a deep, shuddering breath, the newcomer’s voice banishing the monsters from his chest. Glory and the others became wispy, then vanished as Buffy refused to acknowledge their existence. She’d come for him. Even in his nightmares, she’d come for him.

The chains strung from the ceiling to his wrists were the next thing to go, Buffy catching him before he could fall. She’d come for him, and he could breathe. _Don’t even need air, you bloody git._ True, but it didn’t matter. He took another deep breath, sucking in air until his lungs ached from it. He’d always hated not being able to breathe, ever since he’d “woken” upside down in an already occupied coffin and had had to dig himself out. The G-virus larvae growing in his chest and bursting out hadn’t exactly made that particular trauma any better.

“I’ve got you,” Buffy murmured, walking him towards the bed. Her nose wrinkled adorably in distaste. “I’d accuse your imagination of torturing you with how gaudy this all is, except I saw the real deal when I rescued you.”

He snorted at that, the pain from his injuries fading to what they were in the waking world as the nightmare lost more of its hold on him. “Please. My imagination has far better taste.” He made a show of glancing about, pretending he wasn’t holding tight to the slayer to keep the gibbering panic at bay. “Entirely different color scheme, of course. Maybe a few skulls and cobwebs for ambiance. Leather and studs along with the chains.”

He glanced back at Buffy in time to catch her rolling her eyes. “We’re talking about nightmare torture here, not your own personal love nest ideas.”

The banter was helping, grounding him in the present, where the horrors of the past and fears of the future couldn’t touch him.

Then everything changed, the dreamscape mutating into something else as the distinct feeling of a Slayer dream settled over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get out. Found out about some somewhat life-changing medical issues after my last chapter, and that kind of killed the muse for a while. It's also been harder to get motivated to write since leaving a site that was more review heavy (not a request for reviews, just an explanation for why the writing has been going slowly. I love all my reader, whether they feel able to review or not. <3 )
> 
> Anyway, I seem to be back into the writing grove, so hopefully updates will be more common.


	5. Chapter 5

The sign read “Welcome to Raccoon City.” Spike’s hands shifted on the steering wheel, nudging the DeSoto towards the sign.

“We aren’t here for that,” Buffy said from the passenger seat.

“Spoilsport,” he muttered, straightening the wheel.

“This is my stop,” she said. Her door opened, showing a black void instead of the destroyed city streets he saw through the windows.

“It’s dangerous to go alone.”

“Two by two, while the third wheels come and go,” she agreed. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before dinner.”

She dove into the blackness. Then it was his stop.

Without stopping the car, he opened his door and stepped out into a lab. A familiar looking sandy-haired man in a white lab coat was filling a case with vials of variously colored liquids. William Birkin. One of Walsh’s cronies.

Men burst into the lab, wearing black combat armor and ventilator masks. The verbal exchange was distorted and indistinct, but the gunfire was painfully loud. The men in armor took the case, leaving Birkin a bloody, dying mess. Dying, but not dead. Shaking hands grabbed up one remaining vial of purple fluid and loaded it into a syringe. And then….

“He sees you,” Dru said from behind Spike as Birkin began to mutate, one arm swelling grotesquely as an eye the size of his head grew out of the injection site on his shoulder. “The virus wants you.” She gently turned Spike’s head, showing him a little girl in what looked like some kind of warehouse or industrial plant. “He sees her, too. Daughter of the host. A dead man and a living girl are not the same. One makes perfect little monsters to run all about. The other… she absorbs the parasites. She becomes a monster. The virus wants her just as much as you, my darling boy.”

His eyes narrowed. Mutated William Birkin wanted the girl? He was bloody well going to make sure the bastard didn’t get anything he wanted.

Spike chased after the girl, running through the living room of a large house, then a parking garage before splashing into a sewer. That was where he lost sight of her.

“Bloody buggering fuck,” he swore, coming to a stop and looking around. No point in trying for her scent in a bloody sewer. Still no sight of her, but there was Buffy, in the sewer, with the inside of a library behind her. “You seen a little tidbit wander by?”

Tidbit… he could really do with a bit of snack right about now.

“You just missed her,” Buffy said.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, scratching at his wrist. His gaze wandered, noting the rats lapping at the green liquid seeping from a broken vial. “Stupid chit is going to get herself nabbed by the bloody mutant.” Then he tilted his head as he looked beyond Buffy. “Looks like you’ve your own situation to worry about, love.”

She turned back toward the library, leaving him to his own task. He took two steps before finding himself somewhere that looked like it could have been the cousin of the Initiative, right down to Walsh sitting in front of a collection of screens, one of them showing himself, Buffy, and the little girl in a parking garage. Another showed Dawn and Rupert with an Asian woman. Two… creatures stood behind Walsh. The human features were different and the demon bits weren’t all the same, but he recognized them as the same sort of thing Adam had been.

“The spider queen in her lair,” Dru murmured from behind him. “Little flies had best stay away.”

“I’m no fly.”

“Maybe no, maybe so,” she singsonged. Then she spun him around, taking his hands and positioning them under the faucet of a bathroom sink. Blood began to flow from it. “Just remember to wash your hands before dinner.”

The towel she gave him said Manus Dextra over an image of a closed right fist.

“Wouldn’t want to have bad manners.”

He turned away from the sink, drawn by a barely heard sound. As he walked through the darkness, he started to make it out. A girl was singing.

“… two by two, hurrah, hurrah.  
The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah.  
The ants go marching two by two,  
The little one stops to tie his shoe.  
And they all go marching…  
_Down…  
_To the _ground_…  
To get out of the rain.  
Boom, boom….”

The girl he’d been trying to find was suddenly right there in front of him. “Boom,” she whispered. And behind her, something exploded.

**...**

“… Don’t worry, I’ll be back before dinner.”

Buffy dove into the blackness beyond the car door, rolling as she hit the ground. Then she got to her feet and went through a door into what seemed to be a gun store. The man behind the counter looked sad and rundown. And was pointing a rifle at her.

“You’re going to need this,” the man said, setting the rifle on the counter.

She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, no, guns aren’t really my thing.”

“Killing monsters is your thing, using whatever tools will do the job.” As he spoke, Buffy found herself looking out the window. Smashed cars were everywhere, and bodies lurched through the streets. “Distance is your friend,” the man said from right beside her, pressing the rifle into her hand. “It’s the best way to deliver your gift.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to be Santa Claus.”

She opened the door, stepping through into something that looked like it had once been a museum. There was even a giant statue of a woman near the back, resting on an even larger base. She walked towards it, over bloody shoeprints and past makeshift medical areas. Past the patterned rug and desk that declared she was in the Raccoon Police Department. There was a long gold plaque on the statue’s base with three round depressions almost as big as her head.

They filled in with three medallions, a unicorn, a woman, and a lion. The base changed as each medallion appeared, until it was gone, showing a gated door. It wasn’t time for that. Not yet. She turned away and started walking through a library.

“Gonna follow the script, B, or do what I would do?” Faith asked, strolling along beside her.

“Somehow, I don’t think trying to steal boyfriends is really going to help that much.”

“Ooh, feisty. You’re gonna need that.” Faith reached out to grab her arm while something rustled back in the stacks. “Flip the script, B. The Puppet Master thinks she knows you, but she’s only seen the tip of the iceberg. Don’t do the expected.”

“I’ve already cut the strings.”

“Don’t let them put new ones on you,” Faith said. Then she knelt down and picked a card up off the floor before pressing it into Buffy’s hand. “Don’t give up. You’ll figure things out if you keep going until it’s almost time for dinner. Probably.”

Buffy stared down at the card. Manus Sinistra. The open left hand. The edge of the card dug into her right palm, drawing blood. She let it go and watched it fall. Fluttering down, down, a slow spiral into the sewers where beady-eyed rats lapped at green liquid seeping from broken vials. They scattered as a girl – not much younger than Dawn – ran past. A man reached out of the shadows and grabbed her, the pendant she was wearing breaking away and falling to the ground in a parking garage. Then the man and girl vanished into the darkness just as someone else came splashing into the sewer.

“Bloody buggering fuck,” Spike swore as he came to a stop, glancing around. “You seen a little tidbit wander by?”

“You just missed her.”

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, absently scratching at his right wrist. “Stupid chit is going to get herself nabbed by the bloody mutant.” Then he tilted his head, looking beyond her. “Looks like you’ve your own situation to deal with, love.”

Something was rustling in the stacks again. She turned, but it was too slow, like trying to move through syrup. Whatever was in the stacks jumped out at her….

“The cheese must stay together!” a bald man insisted, waving a slice of cheese at her. There was a hole in the middle, with the missing piece stuck to the side of the slice.

The man slapped the cheese onto her still bleeding palm, then pushed her away.

She stumbled onto a moving train. The little girl from the sewer was curled up on a bench, wrapped up in Spike’s jacket. The pendant she’d lost fell from her hand, becoming a stopwatch, counting down the time.

Three.

Two.

…One…

**...**

_Then:_

Spike half fell, half rolled out of bed, landing in a heap of tangled blankets on the floor before he could fully open his eyes. Had to get up. Had to find Buffy. Had to…. Had to, what, exactly? He took a slow, deep breath and tried to gather his scattered thoughts.

Buffy was off hunting after her right git of a boyfriend, who was refusing a shot to control the G-virus running rampant through his body. Spike shuddered and forced back the panic and memories of Adam. Huddling in the corner and just screaming for a while might have been nicely therapeutic, but it wouldn’t be terribly helpful in the current situation.

The current situation…. Right, okay. Buffy had gone all squirrelly a few days before (_Right around the time you had that dream of kissing her_), and then, this morning, she’d told him about Soldier Boy. She’d insisted that Spike stay in the house, which still had all the magical protections against Adam. That it would keep him safe if the worst happened and Finn came after him in an attempt to make more G-virus monsters.

And then he’d had the dream. _Could have just been a wonky nightmare,_ he reminded himself. _Wouldn’t exactly be the first time._ No. No, that wasn’t right. It hadn’t been a normal dream. There’d been an odd sort of weight to it. Like….

_The stars pressing down, _Dru’s voice murmured in his memories, _whispering all their thoughts while the pixies listen in._

Prophecy. Slayer dream. He’d had a bloody slayer dream.

He stared at his left hand for a moment, then snapped into action, pulling a notebook and pen from his nightstand before throwing on a pair of sweatpants. Then he hustled up the stairs to the kitchen, shoving Dawn’s homework off the table to make room.

“Hey!” the girl protested. “What the hell was that all about?”

He ignored her, scribbling down everything he remembered from the dream.

Fire.  
Finn’s body twisting and changing.  
A woman screaming.  
Fire!  
Buffy with tears in her eyes.  
Things almost like the ones that had burst out his chest, but weaker and malformed. Dying.  
Fire!!  
The smell of burning flesh.  
A monster’s scream.  
Walsh, looking at a giant tube, smiling in satisfaction at the mutated Riley Finn suspended in fluid within.

And in another was Spike himself, screaming soundlessly while _things_ ripped through his chest, pouring out in never ending waves.

** FIRE! FIRE! FIREFIREFIRE! **

The pen broke from the pressure he was using, which had been enough to go through a couple of pages. Spike blinked down at it, vaguely noticing that he was drawing in rapid little gasps of air. G-virus mutants on the loose. Had to breathe. Needed to be able to breathe….

“Spike?”

He shuddered and tried again to throw off the sense of panic from the dream. “Bad things going down, little bit. Your sis happen to have a flamethrower lying about?”

He grabbed her pencil and one of her notebooks, skipping past the pages of maths notes to a clean page to make notes of his own. There had been a pattern to the dream, messages hidden in the small details just as much as the large. Fire was an obvious theme. They needed fire to stop Finn, and he didn’t think his lighter was going to cut it.

Fire to stop the monster. The G-virus regenerated its host, causing mutations as it went to work. Could fire early enough destroy the mutant before it got too impervious to harm? Those tanks for him and Finn, what would be, or a warning of what might, if they didn’t use the fire soon enough?

“Um… no?” Dawn answered uncertainly. “I don’t think. She’s got a rocket launcher somewhere, but, um, I don’t think it has any ammo.”

Right, okay. Not a problem. He knew a few demons who owed him and might have what he needed. It was daytime, but that wouldn’t stop him. He’d hit the sewers, call in his marks, and should have the hardware by nightfall.

Then he’d just have to find Buffy, who would likely already have found Finn. And if not….

If he’d mutated enough, Finn would be the one finding him.

**...**

_Now:_

Spike slumped back in the seat at the RV’s table, bringing his cigarette to his mouth for a long drag. He let his eyes flutter closed, savoring a few more hits of nicotine before leaning forward and putting the fag out. Buffy, Dawn, and Rupert were gathered about, the RV pulled over while they tried to figure everything out.

“Right then,” he said, looking at the four open notebooks spread across the table. One was an account of the dream he’d just had and another was Buffy’s. The bits at the beginning and again when they’d both dreamt of the sewer were highlighted in purple in both notebooks.

Another of the notebooks was the one he’d just been scribbling down notes in, filled with circled and underlined bits and random questions. He tapped a circled phrase with a pen. “Two by two seems fairly straightforward. You said it at the beginning of the dream,” he inclined his head towards Buffy, “and the girl was singing about ants going two by two. Then there’s the mention of third wheels and me seeing us in groups of two, each with an extra.”

He pulled over the fourth notebook and wrote, _Stay together. Keep the Bit with the Watcher._

Then he tapped another circled part of his notes with the pen. “The rats drinking the green stuff is important.”

“Are you certain of that?” Rupert asked with a slight frown. “They only showed up once, seemingly as background.”

Spike shook his head. He’d thought about that, that maybe it was just to show whoever had nabbed the viruses had gone through the sewer, but it didn’t feel right. “I’ve been working out daft bits of prophecy for over a hundred years. Trust me on this. We both dreamt the same basic thing, there, but had different perspectives on it. And we both noticed the rats drinking from a broken vial.” He looked towards Dawn. “You’ve been reading through Graham’s report. It say anything about something green?”

The girl nodded, looking pale. “Um, yeah. That sounds like the T-virus, especially with the rotting people lurching around that Buffy saw. It basically makes zombies. Symptoms are being itchy and getting really confused, and stuff. And, um, majorly hungry. Like, eating other humans levels of hungry, and that’s just super gross.” She shuddered, then glanced at Spike. “Um… no offense.”

“None taken, pidge,” he said with a slight smirk. He pushed aside uneasy thoughts about the dream. His wrist had itched at one point, right around when he’d been thinking about being a mite peckish. _Probably just bleed through from reality. _Healing from torture tended to itch like crazy once you got to a certain point. “Though I’ll have you know that humans are bloody delicious.”

“Ew.” Her face wrinkled up adorably. “I so didn’t want to hear that.”

“Stop grossing out my sister,” Buffy said, giving him a light smack to the back of the head. He obliged her with a loud “ow” and a glare. “You’re the one with all the history of analyzing this stuff, so get back to analyzing.” Before he could do that, though, she leaned forward and poked at his notes, where he’d circled and underlined the words before dinner. “I really don’t think this is of the good, especially with all the talk about virus victims being hungry.”

“Also, they start rotting while still alive,” Dawn added in helpfully.

“And you worry about _me_ grossing _her_ out?” Spike muttered. Then he tapped the fourth notebook thoughtfully before writing down that the T-virus was loose in Raccoon City, spread in part by infected rats. “With the dinner thing, there are a few things to consider. It could just be a time reference, but I doubt that. One of the references involved your hand getting cut by my card from the enjoining ritual. Another involved my hands getting washed in blood. Could be something is going to try to eat us, and the only way out of it involves the bond between us from that.”

“The presence of the cheese man definitely implies that, if nothing else,” Rupert added. His pet theory was that the cheese represented the power of the slayer, and Spike thought he likely wasn’t too far off, there. “The concept of dinner might also be metaphorical, and not someone being literally eaten.”

“Hell, it could just mean we need to stock up on snacks,” Buffy said. “My slayer dreams like to give me weird, cryptic advice about my love life, like, ‘hey, yeah, don’t kiss Riley or the sun will go down.’ So maybe this time it’s trying to tell us we’re gonna miss dinner and need to pack a big lunch.”

He wondered how things would have gone if she’d actually listened to the advice about Finn. Would have saved her a lot of heartbreak. He kept that thought to himself. “Somehow, I doubt that’s what it means, though it definitely wouldn’t hurt.”

He added that to his notes. _Stock up on snacks, firearms, and ammo. _The chip would have a fit if he tried to aim a gun at anything, but it had been pretty clear that Buffy would need to be armed with distance weapons. Rupert probably had contacts that could get them the guns. _And I’ll handle the snacks. Knowing her, she’d pack up granola bars and all that diet nonsense._ He’d make sure she had jerky, candy bars, and things like peanut butter crackers. Definitely some of those cheesy goldfish crackers she loved.

She gave him a thoughtful look. “If we went ahead and gave you all the blood in the fridge, would it last you a while, or just cause a big ol’ food coma and be gone?”

“Last a while, though not as long with all the healing I still have to do.”

“That could even be part of the meaning behind the before dinner references,” Rupert pointed out. “Any blood to be had in Raccoon City is likely to be contaminated. Even if we give him everything we currently have, it’s likely he’ll need some from Buffy, especially with another G-virus mutant on the loose.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Spike grumbled.

Not that he’d exactly forgot the beastie would have to be dealt with. Or that it would be after him and the girl. Or that Walsh seemed to have two more Adam-creatures under her control. _Don’t matter. Helped to take out Adam, didn’t I? _And he’d got the flamethrower to Buffy in time, even if Finn hadn’t been mutated quite enough to no longer count as human. If this new monster wanted to jam his larvae down Spike’s throat without even taking him to the cinema or buying him dinner first, he wouldn’t live to regret it.

He took a deep breath and slowly blew it out. Time to get back to work. “Right, give me a minute to get more of this figured out.”

He studied the notes he’d made about the two dreams, writing more things down in the fourth notebook. Finally, he thought he had it as figured out as he could manage.

“Walsh and some of her lot are holed up in Raccoon City, where they’ve been tweaking the G-virus in a hidden lab. Someone came for – or is going to come for – all the viruses William Birkin has been working on, which leads to him turning into a big nasty. And during all this, the T-virus gets out into the population, creating a sodding zombie horde for us to deal with. We also have to worry about doing something before dinner and keeping Little Girl Birkin out of Big Daddy William’s clutches.”

“Also, keep _you_ out of ‘Big Daddy Birkin’s’ clutches,” Buffy piped in. Her hand rested on his thigh, gently squeezing. “I really don’t want to slap your ass back together with duct tape and staples again.”

“Not my ass that’s in danger here, love, though thanks ever so for that particular mental image.” He managed a slight smile for her. “And no worries on the duct tape and staples. Thought I’d pack up some super glue and elastic bandages. Seems a mite more dignified, you know?”

“Be that as it may,” the Watcher said quietly, “we’d rather you stay in one piece, if at all possible. You’ve grown on us. Rather like a fungus, honestly.”

Spike snorted. “You just like having someone else about from across the pond, especially one who’s even older than you are.”

“Well, yes, that goes without saying.” Then he leaned over the table to look at the notebook. “I had a thought about the young lady’s pendant… ah, yes, fairly similar to what you have here. It likely contains something important or is a key to something important. My thought was that it’s likely time sensitive, as well.”

Spike nodded and made note of it. “Good point, that. Countdown might also have something to do with the explosion at the end of my dream. Either way, time limits seem to be an important component. Before dinner. The stopwatch. Trying to get down to the ground before the rain and things going boom.”

Buffy shifted closer to him, peering down at the page. “Okay, so, we go in, take out as many of the zombies as we can, stop Walsh and the G-virus mutant, save the girl, and all while keeping Dawn safe.”

He almost expected the nibblet to protest, but there was an air of subdued seriousness about her. “That might not be possible. Spike saw me and Giles on one of Walsh’s screens.” She glanced around the RV. “Somehow, I kinda doubt she has cameras set up in here.”

“Not bloody likely,” Spike muttered. Beside him, Buffy had gone unnaturally still, no doubt torn on what they should do. “The slayer dreams seem to mean this is a problem only we can solve. If we don’t go to Raccoon City, it’s like to come back and bite us on the arse later. That being said, one thing I learned with Dru’s visions is that no future is set in stone, even if some of them are so likely they might as well be.” He reached out to grip Buffy’s shoulder. “The future is what we make of it, and we’ll be doing our damnedest to make sure it’s one where we all come out of this intact.”

“I’ve some contacts that can help us toward that,” Rupert said, moving towards the front of the RV. “We’ll stop at the next town, get what we need, then head on towards Raccoon City. Agreed?”

Buffy looked at all of them, taking a deep breath and releasing it in a sigh. “Agreed. Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of Buffy's slayer dream is based (with permission) on the ideas in Myrabeth's fic [Cheese](https://myrabethfanfic.wordpress.com/2019/09/03/cheese/) I highly recommend it.


	6. Chapter 6

Chaos reigned. Screams rang out in the distance, intertwined with the shattering of glass and the screech of metal. The crash and bang of further destruction. The pop and crackle of fires, more imagined than heard as the wind of their passing carried the scent of burning. Death. Decay. The acrid stink of burning tires and the burnt pork smell of humans fed to the flames.

It sang to him. Called him to dance through the destruction and mayhem, to howl with the manic joy of it all as he joined in the chaos.

It was bloody magnificent. The sights. The sounds. The thrum of the machine between his legs. The woman pressed against his back, her arms around his waist. If it had been Dru….

But it wasn’t Dru, and it was bloody well unlikely it ever would be again, after the last time he’d seen her. And….

A zombie popped out from around a crashed car and right into the path of the motorcycle they’d found abandoned at a convenience store. Spike cursed and swerved, then swerved the other way to avoid a three-car pile-up.

…_and I need to keep my head in the game and out my arse, or we’re both going to end up losing ours,_ he thought grimly, focusing on his driving. _Dru’s buggered off, and you’re bloody well rid of her, no matter how much it hurts. And maybe Buffy will never love you, but she cares, and at least she’s sodding well there when you need her._

Buffy’s arms tightened around him, conveying a question with that simple movement. 

“No worries, love,” he called out just loud enough to be heard over the engine. “Just a bit of turbulence. If that map Graham included is right, shouldn’t be much longer until we get to the police station.”

And the closer they got, the harder it was going to be to actually get there. They’d heard the PA system, urging everyone to go to the station, where there would be food and medical supplies. Seemed the whole bloody city had been on their way, making themselves a buffet for the zombies with all the traffic jams and car wrecks. It was getting harder to navigate the roads even with something as small as the bike. The sidewalks, though…. Still a mite crowded with debris, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

He grinned and swerved the bike towards the curb. “Gonna be a bit of a bump.”

They were here to end this mess, not play in it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the ride, now did it?

**...**

_Then:_

Spike bounced once on the balls of his feet, then burst into motion. Punch. Kick. Duck and roll before sweeping out a leg. Then he was back up on his feet, pausing for a moment to focus on his connection to the slayer. A few miles away, probably held up by a fledge or somesuch. He could follow the link to where she was or just wait for her to show up for their sparring match.

_She’ll probably be finished up before I even get to her,_ he decided. Best to just keep to his warmup. That decided, he turned towards the heavy-duty, reinforced punching bag they’d hung up in the training room. He’d only gotten a few hits in before the door to the alleyway opened… with Buffy still a mile or so away.

“Sorry, but we’re closed for…” He caught the scent as he was turning towards the intruder, before he even saw her. Just soon enough to shift the punch meant to smash into her face. “…business.”

“Hello, Spike.” Dru smiled dreamily and stroked her own cheek with the bud of a red rose. “Mummy’s home. Did you miss me, my darling boy?”

“Dru,” he whispered hoarsely, his arm falling down to his side as he stared at her. She’d come back for him. She…. She was injured, covered in healing burns. “What happened?”

She moved as she talked, swaying and twirling in time to music only she could hear. Once, he would have joined her, following her lead wherever the mystery music would take them. Once…. Never again. It could never be again, and his non-beating heart ached with the knowledge.

He drank in the sight of her, committing the way she moved even more to his memory as she told him what had happened. He didn’t catch all of it. A film seemed to have stretched across reality. All he knew was that Angel had set her on fire. Had tried to kill her….

Bloody Angel. Couldn’t sodding well do anything right, could he? _Always has left me to clean up the mess when it comes to women._ He took a deep breath, and slowly let it out…. And then lunged forward, grabbing for Drusilla’s hair with one hand while the other fished the stake out of his coat pocket. _Don’t think,_ he told himself. _Don’t think, just bloody _do_ it._

Dru shrieked and pulled away, her flailing arm knocking the stake from his hand. “Traitor!” she spat. “She’s still all around you. Even in you, now. But she can’t have you. I shan’t let her.”

She came at him, then. None of her mind tricks, just a whirlwind of teeth and claws. He fought her, and he fought himself. He wanted to grovel at her feet and beg her forgiveness. Beg her to take him back. He wanted to scream, to rage at her for throwing him away. Wanted to tell her to go, that he’d pretend he hadn’t seen her to keep her safe from the slayer. Had to kill her, because it was what Buffy needed him to do. Had to end her – dust and gone – so that she would never kill again. For Buffy…. He had to….

He pinned her down near where he’d dropped the stake, just barely able to grab it while still keeping her trapped under him. Then he shifted, barely aware of the sound of the door opening again.

_For Buffy. I have to do it for Buffy._

“Sorry, Dru,” he whispered.

The stake plunged down.

And before it could pierce her chest, someone slammed into him, knocking him aside. _Bloody hell!_ Before the identity of his attacker even registered, he took a swing.

“Stop!” Buffy yelled, grabbing his fist. “If you set off that chip, I swear I’m going to hunt up someone to take it out just so I can shove it up your ass.”

He blinked up at her. “…Don’t think something small enough to be shoved into my noggin without brain damage would really be all that bad up my arse.” It wasn’t what he’d meant to say. He’d meant to babble some sort of explanation. Or maybe a thank you.

“Yeah, well, the chip isn’t wrapped up in my fist at the moment, which will be wearing a set of spiked brass knuckles if I have to follow through,” she said sweetly. “Also, the lack of brain damage is debatable.”

Spiked brass knuckles….

_No,_ he told his body firmly. _The thought of the bloody slayer fisting you with a set of spiked brass knuckles is _not _arousing._ His body refused to believe him. He supposed if the spikes were small enough, and blunt….

Buffy shifted on top of him, her nose wrinkling as she noticed his reaction. “Weirdo,” she muttered affectionately. She opened her mouth to say more, but was cut off by a wail from Dru.

_Bloody hell. I forgot about her._ Not entirely true. He’d _wanted_ to forget about her. To give her time to escape, even though he knew she had to die. Except…. Buffy had stopped him from staking her. Why had she stopped him from staking her? _You know why. So it wouldn’t be you._

“I’ve lost you now,” Dru said sadly. “There was a chance, if I came for you…. But _she_ interfered, and now you’re lost to me.”

“You lost him when you threw him away,” Buffy said, voice harsh as she got to her feet. Her hand snaked down as he got up onto his knees, curling around the back of his neck to keep him from standing up. “And you didn’t come for him. You got hurt, and you came crying to your _former_ caretaker to kiss your boo boos better. Get the hell out of my town, Drusilla. If I see you again, I’ll stake you and mail your dust to Angel.”

Dru just looked at him, slowly shaking her head. “My sweet William…. Not mine anymore. My daisy boy belongs to the sunshine, now.”

Then she was gone, out through the door and into the shadows.

They watched in silence for a moment before Buffy turned to face him, her hand still on the back of his neck.

“Promise me,” she said fiercely. “Promise me that you’ll never stake her, unless there’s no other choice.”

“Why?” he asked. He wasn’t questioning the reason for the promise. They both knew the answer to that.

“You tried to kill Riley for me. You couldn’t, but you _tried_ and….” She shuddered and sank to her knees in front of him, resting her forehead against his chest. “You tried to do it, so I wouldn’t have to. I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure you never have to kill Dru. Maybe I should have staked her tonight, but I didn’t want to do it right in front of….”

She shuddered again as her words trailed off.

He wrapped his arms around her, letting himself just hold her for a bit while he tried not to think. Couldn’t stop himself. Couldn’t keep the thoughts from coming. Dru was gone. She’d left him. Again. Abandoned him. Again.

_Tried to kill her,_ he reminded himself, feeling oddly numb. He’d been about to drive a stake into her chest. _Thought I had no choice, didn’t I? Thought I needed to do it, to prove…._ Didn’t change anything. She was gone, and here he was with no one to take care of. No one to need him. No one….

_Got Joyce and the Nibblet, don’t I? Even the bloody Scoobies. _And Buffy….

“Come on, Slayer,” he said quietly, pulling away from her and getting to his feet. He reached his hand down to pull her up. She was still hurting from the tin soldier’s fiery demise. She needed him to help take her mind off it. “Let’s spar and get in a good patrol. After, we can pick up a couple pints of ice cream and watch some badly dubbed kung fu movies. Sound good?”

She gazed at him with eyes that saw more than he wanted just then. Eyes that knew what he needed right now. “That sounds great.”

**...**

_Now: _

It wasn’t exactly her first rodeo. Monsters. Apocalypses. Even a magical version of zombies. She’d dealt with it all. Still, there was a small part of her that wanted to just press her face against Spike’s back and hide. To block out the sights and, especially, the smells.

Oh, god, the smells. Even her human nose was able to pick up the copper tang of blood and the sickly-sweet stench of decay. And then there was the one that still sometimes haunted her nightmares. It was faint, but she’d become sensitized to it. The charred pork smell of burning human.

Remembered screams echoed through her mind along with hazy visions of that night. The night she’d….

The motorcycle lurched as Spike swerved to avoid a zombie, then again to keep from plowing into a bunch of wrecked cars. What the hell? Buffy tightened her arms around his waist, wondering what had just happened. The zombies weren’t exactly fast, and Spike had the situational awareness of a predator. Why had he had to swerve at the last minute like that to avoid one?

_Distracted,_ she thought, shaking her head slightly. Awesome situational awareness did squat for him when he wasn’t actually paying attention. Which was why he’d occasionally been known to run into walls and trees or fall into empty graves when he was busy monologuing at people about whatever random passion had bitten him on the ass at that moment.

“No worries, love,” he called out over the roar of the motorcycle engine. “Just a bit of turbulence. If that map Graham included is right, shouldn’t be much longer until we get to the police station.”

The police station…. The city’s emergency PA system had been urging people to go there, where there was supposed to be food, medicine, and safety. Had anyone actually made it? And if they had, was the safety real?

She shifted, resettling the weight of the duffel bag full of weapons across her back. It didn’t matter. She’d _make_ the safety real, once they got there. She hadn’t been able to do anything to protect the people infected with the T-virus, but she’d do whatever she could for the survivors.

“Going to be a bit of a bump.” Spike’s voice was full of barely suppressed glee as he angled the motorcycle towards the sidewalk.

_Well, at least one of us is having fun,_ she thought sourly, tightening her hold again as they went over the curb.

Not that she really blamed him. Chaos, death, destruction. It was all basically vampire nip, and Spike was what he was. No government pain chip or feelings of love and friendship were going to change that. He did the best he could for her sake, and she’d come to accept it.

_Besides, he needs a bit of fun right now_. There wasn’t going to be much once the G-mutant started hunting for him.

**...**

_Then:_

“…your fault!”

What? Where was…? What? The Bronze. She’d gone to the Bronze with Tara to talk about classes. Spike and Xander had been there, playing pool. Xander had been complaining about Willow and….

“How is this in any way _my_ fault? You’re the one who released the troll. With ingredients you _stole_ from the shop, I might add.”

Troll. That’s right. There was a troll. A sense of urgency rose up, pushing aside the numb confusion. A troll had been rampaging through the Bronze. She had to get up. Had to….

“Up and at ‘em, slayer.”

A weight was suddenly lifted off of her, and Buffy blinked her eyes open, gazing up at Spike as he carefully set a big piece of railing to the side. There was a cut along his cheek, and he was moving like things hurt inside.

“Is everyone okay?” she asked as he helped her to her feet. The troll was gone. There was just the devastation it had left behind. The quiet moans and sobs of injured, scared people.

Spike just looked at her for a moment, something dark and knowing in his eyes. “Just minor injuries to our lot,” he said quietly. No mention of anyone else. No mention of the people who couldn’t moan or sob anymore. “Xander’s the worst of it with a broken arm.”

A quick glance around showed Tara trying to free people from the rubble while Anya fussed over Xander. And Willow….

“What was the spell?” Buffy asked, her voice harsher than she’d meant it to be as she interrupted the other woman’s it’s-totally-not-my-fault fest. “What was the big, important spell that couldn’t wait for Giles to get back?”

Willow wouldn’t look at her. “I… um…. Well, I just wanted to put together a spell to help you. A portable ball of simulated sunshine to help take out vampires.”

A portable ball of…. Buffy just stared, her brain unable to process for a moment. All this destruction. All these people hurt (_and dead,_ a little voice whispered through her mind). All because Willow had wanted to create a spell for a….

“Oh, that’s just bloody brilliant,” Spike said with a snort of disgust. “Did you plan to whip up some magical sunblock, too, or was I meant to trail along with a parasol like Mary bloody Poppins?”

“She doesn’t _alw_–”

“Go.” Buffy cut her off. She didn’t want to hear any more, and there was a troll on the loose, doing God knew what. “Go back to the Magic Box and see if you can find a spell to stop the troll. Anya, get Xander to the hospital and let them know we need some ambulances here. Then go help Willow.”

They all went, acknowledging with words she barely even heard. A portable ball of simulated sunlight…. Her body went into autopilot mode, helping to move the heavier bits of rubble so Tara could get at the people trapped beneath.

She didn’t always patrol with Spike. _But there are always vampires when I hunt for vampires._ And vampires burst into flame when exposed to sunlight. Flaming vampires set other things on fire. Including the humans they were hunting.

God, she could almost smell it. The stench of burning pork. What the hell had Willow been thinking? _Gee, Buffy had to set her boyfriend on fire a few months ago. Maybe she’d like a vamp barbecuing spell._ And she had to have known on some level that it was stupid, otherwise she wouldn’t have tried it while Giles was gone. Wouldn’t have….

“I’m not sampling, you know,” Spike grumped, snapping her out of her thoughts.

What? Not sampling? What the hell was he talking about? She blinked, realizing that she’d ended up staring at Spike, her fists clenched in anger at her sides. He was crouched beside an injured woman, looking annoyed. And hungry.

“All these blood covered people, and I haven’t taken so much as a lick. I could, you know. Chip wouldn’t care. But I haven’t. Know you wouldn’t approve.”

“What, you want some kind of credit for not feeding on bleeding disaster victims?” she snapped, utterly disgusted.

_I don’t fucking believe this._ She fought the urge to punch him in the nose. The woman he was helping didn’t need to see him get beat on, no matter how much he deserved it.

Willow had released a monster on the town and seemed to care more about passing the blame than fixing what she’d done. And now here was Spike, wanting a pat on the head or something for not being gross and… doing what any vampire would have been tempted to do. Even Angel.

The realization hit her like a hammer right between the eyes. _He’s a vampire._ She never really forgot it, but he’d become one of them to the point where she sometimes forgot just what that meant. He wasn’t a human surrounded by injured people and acting like he deserved a medal for helping instead of harming them. He was a hungry predator surrounded by wounded prey, wanting some kind of recognition for fighting against what every instinct was screaming at him to do.

“Yeah,” he snapped back. “I’m bloody well _trying,_ you know, and it’d be nice if some–”

She crossed the distance between them, cutting him off as she pulled him up out of his crouch. “You’re right,” she said quietly.

Then she kissed him. A light brush of her lips against his. An appreciation without being a promise. She couldn’t give him what he really wanted. Not yet. Maybe never. But she could recognize what he was willing to do for her.

“Go,” she said quietly, trying to ignore the thrill of contact tingling through her body. The shocked, wondering look in his eyes flashed to hurt, then anger. “I need you to track the troll. It’s probably leaving a trail big enough for even Xander to follow, but you’ll do better against it, and I can find you once the ambulances get here.”

His eyes narrowed. Still angry, but not quite as much. “I can bloody well control myself. Don’t need to be sent on a bloody errand to keep the humans safe.”

“I know.” She took his left hand in her right, threading their fingers together. “But you’re hurt, and you’re hungry, and it isn’t fair to dangle all this in front of you like a treat that you can’t have. Besides, I really do need someone following the troll while I do what I can to get some of the bigger bits of debris moved.”

The anger was gone, but she couldn’t read the emotion that had replaced it. He tilted his head, studying her. Then he slowly nodded before leaning forward and kissing her. Cool and soft, but also firm. Passion and a burning hunger for her kept carefully leashed by a promise not to push farther than she was ready for.

And then he was gone, out into the night to hunt for the troll.

**...**

_Now:_

The job of a Watcher was to watch. They were meant to send out their slayers and wait, until the day the one they waited for didn’t return. He’d never particularly cared for that aspect of the job, but for now, Giles waited. He and Dawn had been left with the RV at a long-closed truck stop on the outskirts of Raccoon City.

Buffy and Spike would try to be back by morning, and they were stay and wait. And he would watch over Dawn until his slayer returned.

_If she returns…._

“Earl Grey,” Dawn said quietly, setting a cup of tea on the table in front of him. Then she slid into the seat across from him with a mug of her own. Hot chocolate from the smell wafting up with the steam. She stared down into it like it held the secrets to the universe. “They’re going to be okay, right?”

He didn’t answer right away, searching fruitlessly within the depths of his own cup before taking a slow sip. A surprising amount of good had come from Spike moving into the Summers basement, including all of them learning the proper way to make tea. He allowed himself to savor the flavor for a moment before carefully setting the cup down.

“Your sister is a very resourceful young woman,” he said finally, reminding himself as much as Dawn. “And Spike has a habit of landing on his feet, no matter how dire the situation.”

“He got captured by the Initiative.”

“And escaped. Something none of the other demons managed,” Giles pointed out. “He’s cleaver, and has quite a lot of experience to draw upon. I’ve no doubt he and Buffy can handle whatever they find.”

He tried to convince himself of it. The slayer dreams had indicated that they’d be alright if they stayed together. But what if they didn’t? What if they didn’t manage whatever it was they were meant to do “before dinner?” What if….

_What if flying pigs come bursting up from the sewers?_ He shook his head and took another sip of tea. He had to have faith in his slayer. She would get through this. Her and Spike both. He opened his mouth to say as much to Dawn.

But before he could speak, there was a screech of tires and the sound of an engine. Headlights stabbed in through the window, half-blinding him as he stared at the lorry barreling towards them.


	7. Chapter 7

Almost there. Just another turn in a moment or two, and then they’d be at the police station. There was the vague urge to just keep on going, drive on and out, leaving everything behind except for the woman pressed against his back. He let himself consider it for half a second before shaking his head.

_Sod that, _he thought with a snort. Much more fun to fight by her side against the nasties than to just bugger off. _‘Sides, Slayer’d be like to skin my hide if I even tried it._ Of course, a bit of a row with her would be its own sort of fun, wouldn’t it?

God, she’d be bloody glorious. Hair still windswept from the ride, eyes blazing with rage, and the heat of it bringing color to her cheeks. Her bosom heaving as she tried to keep it all in. Then she’d explode, starting with a fist to his nose before going after him in earnest. He’d duck and dodge, weave around her, but it wouldn’t be enough. She’d pound him into the ground, punching and screaming until her fury was spent. Then she’d gaze down at what she’d done and a hint of contrition would seep in amongst the satisfaction. She’d think maybe she went just a touch too far, so she’d reach into her boot for her knife and–

The motorcycle jolted as something fell on them from above, startling a shout from Buffy and sending the bike veering out of control. Spike cursed and fought with it, trying to keep them on the sidewalk and away from the abandoned cars along the side of the road. Behind him, he could feel the slayer tensing, ready to do what she could to rid of them of their uninvited guest. If the zombie managed to bite into her unprotected neck or head…. If her struggles upended the bike, leaving her even more vulnerable to the bloody thing….

“Hold on tight!” he called out to her, increasing their speed as much as he could while still keeping them upright and going the right direction.

Her arms squeezed around him, tight enough to force the air out of his lungs and keep him from drawing in more. The goblins of anxiety broke free in his brain, running about in a panic, screaming that he needed to breathe. Needed air. Needed….

_No you bloody well don’t. Sodding vampire, remember? You can bloody well endure. For Buffy. _He ruthlessly clamped down on the panic and sped up, beyond what he had any hope of controlling. Then he whipped the bike around the corner, flinging the zombie off to the side.

Buffy’s grip loosened enough for him to breathe, and his mouth stretched out in a grin. He’d bloody well pulled it off. Just a moment more, and they’d–

There was a sodding _wall_ of cars blocking the road, and they were going too fast to stop in time.

“Bloody hell!”

They were well and truly buggered.

**...**

The zombie went flying off the bike, and Buffy immediately loosened her grip on Spike without letting go. She didn’t want to risk triggering a panic attack – especially when he was trying to steer an out-of-control motorcycle – but she wasn’t exactly eager to join the zombie in being flung off into the street.

She shuddered, relieved that Spike’s crazy idea had worked. And that she hadn’t exactly known what that idea was until after he’d made that turn. _Maybe I’ll give him a punch to the nose for every gray hair I end up with in the morning from that stunt._ Though that wouldn’t be fair, since a good share of them would probably be from a fucking zombie falling on her from the sky. Or off a roof. Whatever. Zombie from above. Either way, she was seriously _not_ a fan.

“Bloody hell!” Spike suddenly shouted.

Buffy peered around his shoulder, and the world seemed to go into slow motion. Cars. Everywhere. There was no way around them, and no way they could stop in time. Fuck.

“Going to the right!” she called out, time snapping back to normal as she leaned that way.

She could feel Spike leaning to the other side to counterbalance. Then she was kicking free of the bike. Twisting to wrap herself around the duffel bag of weapons. A crash to the ground, and rolling to diffuse the impact as much as she could until she slammed into a car.

There was a moment of still silence, as if the world was holding its breath. Then the pain flooded in. _Ow. Owie. Ow._ She felt like she’d gone a few rounds against a brick wall. _Or, you know, a fucking road. _At least she’d been wearing jeans and a leather jacket. If not, she’d have probably left behind at least half of her skin. As it was….

She forced herself up into a sitting position, struggling to get untangled from the duffel bag. She gave up after a moment to take stock. Scrapes and bruises. A patch on her thigh where her jeans and a layer or two of skin had been left behind on the road. She hurt, but at least nothing seemed to be broken.

“You alright, Slayer?”

Tension she hadn’t fully been aware of eased as Buffy turned her head towards Spike. He was standing next to another car, looking no worse than she felt. Not exactly great, but at least he’d managed to get off the bike before it crashed.

“Yeah,” she said in response to his question, grimacing at a fresh burst of pain as she shifted position. Not exactly her best fall ever, but she hadn’t done too bad. “Cheerleading and ice skating really teach you how to take a tumble. And, you know, the whole being the slayer thing. The weapons are okay, too.” She patted the duffel bag. “I broke their fall.”

“Oh, good,” Spike said with a lazy smirk. “Be a right bitch to have to replace ‘em and the rest of the supplies.”

She snorted and hauled herself up to her feet with a grunt. Before she could ask Spike for help getting untangled, there was a thump beside her and his smirk had melted away into an expression of pure horror.

Time slowed again. Buffy had all of the time in the world to look to the side. To see the zombie cop on the hood of the car, lunging hungrily towards her. It’s gaping, putrid mouth only inches from her face.

Then Spike was there, his right wrist jammed between the thing’s teeth.

“Bad dog!” he snarled, driving his other fist between its eyes hard enough to crunch bone and drive it into the brain. “No nummy treat for you.”

_Gotta destroy the brain,_ she thought blankly, remembering Graham’s report. The T-virus stimulated the hunger and motor centers of the brain. Destroy that, and there was nothing for it to work with.

Spike seemed to remember, too. He punched the zombie in the head a couple more times before pulling his wrist free from its mouth. He wiped away the blood and drool with a noise of disgust, then turned and leaned against the hood of the car. It was a police car and there was the body of a cop sprawled across it….

“Hello, cutie,” she murmured, hopefully low enough that Spike wouldn’t actually hear.

No such luck. He tilted his head to the side, then slowly grinned. “Remember that, do you? After all this time?”

“It wasn’t _that_ long ago,” she muttered, feeling her cheeks heat with embarrassment. Oh, yeah, she’d definitely remembered. Sometimes in dreams that a slayer seriously shouldn’t have been having about someone who had been an enemy at the time. “_You_ remember. Why shouldn’t I?”

“I remember it because I’m in love with you. What’s your excuse? Had feelings that were rosier than you’d like to admit, even back then?”

The grin was wider, to the point where she was tempted to offer him a fork for all the shit he was clearly eating. “Just shut up and help me with this damn duffel bag.”

The jackass laughed at her, but he also helped her finally get untangled. And then he led the way towards the police station.

**...**

_Then:_

_How the bloody hell did I let myself get talked into this?_ Spike wondered, staring down into a box full of threads of silvery white… stuff. He’d no bloody clue what it was made of, just that he, Buffy, and Dawn were meant to be spreading it about on the gallery walls to mimic spider webs. Whatever it was was vaguely sticky, though more of a static cling sort of thing than glue or chewed bubblegum.

Buffy pulled a two-foot strand out, stared at it for a moment, then just slapped it up on the wall before grabbing another. Part of it clung to her sleeve, and then to her back as she turned towards her Watcher. “Are you sure you researched Mom’s display enough?” she demanded. “Because we seriously do _not_ need a repeat of the Mask Incident.”

“You’ve a bit of–” Spike started to say, reaching out to grab the other end of the strand she was holding.

“Not now,” she snapped, turning towards him for a moment and causing more of it to stick to her. “With your luck, if we unleash spider demons, they’ll end up nesting in your hair or something. You could get a shiny new phobia to keep the bears company.”

His eyes narrowed as she turned back towards Giles. A shiny new phobia? That was bloody well uncalled for, wasn’t it? Before he could tell the slayer off, the nibblet nudged him and took the end of the strand from him. Then she slowly lowered herself into a squat, carefully snaking the strand down her sister’s shirt and jeans.

“The ‘Mask Incident’ was due to Joyce getting a hold of legitimate artifacts. What she bought this time is no more than art. I consulted….”

And the Watcher was off, rambling on about all of the books he’d read through.

Dawn gave Spike another nudge, rolling her eyes and folding her hand and flapping her fingers in the universal motion of someone running their gob. He grinned and handed her another strand, taking one for himself. He played with the strand a bit, discovering that pulling it apart produced a spiderweb effect. _So, that’s the trick of it, is it? _That had some possibilities. Slayer didn’t want to listen to him? Thought she could make fun of him when she was the one who’d made a sodding bear? He slowly smirked, then carefully stuck one segment of the webbing to her shoulder, stretching it down past her arse.

“Okay, so you’ve looked at a lot of books, but you don’t exactly own all of the books in existence,” Buffy pointed out. “There could be all kinds of spider demon stuff in other books.”

The little bit grinned back at him and opened up her own strand before wrapping it lightly around Buffy’s leg. Barely there whispers of touch, not enough for even the Slayer to notice while she was focused on her Watcher. The man himself just gave them a vaguely disapproving look but didn’t say anything. At least, not about what they were doing. He’d plenty more to say about the research.

“Now, see here, I have thoroughly researched every part of your mother’s purchase. I even had Willow check her computer. While it honors a spider deity, none of it is anything more than artwork. There will be no spider demons…. At least, none from this display.”

Good save, there, though Spike wasn’t going to bring up the three types of spider demons already living in Sunnydale. _And none have caused a sodding “phobia.” _He actually _liked_ spiders. Bears were just bloody terrifying, especially when you were tied to a bloody chair.

“Oh, wow, _that’s_ reassuring.” Buffy turned back towards the wall, Dawn almost falling in her haste to silently back away. Then she turned back towards Giles. “Your record on researching stuff isn’t exactly one hundred percent, you know. Like that fear demon thingy. And there was the time with Word of Valium that you thought was a book, when it was really some doohickey you had. You could have missed something, and it’s not like it would kill you to look into things a bit more.”

The look Giles was giving them was quite a bit less disapproving now. Spike looked back at him, raising a brow and almost daring him to tattle as he passed bits of web back and forth to Dawn.

The man’s lips twitched into something that was almost a smile. “Yes, well, as I’m not needed here, I’ll be going.”

“Giles,” Buffy started to take a step forward, then froze. She slowly looked down. “What the…?”

“Tried to warn you, Slayer. You’d got a bit of the webbing stuck to you,” Spike said blandly. She stared at him incredulously, then looked back at all of the webbing. She wasn’t stupid. She knew there was no way she’d done it all to herself. “Careful, don’t want to tear up your mum’s stuff, now, do you?”

The look on her face clearly said that she wanted to tear up _something_. Possibly his spleen after chewing her way to it.

“I should get back home,” Dawn said, standing up and slowly backing away. “I’ve got homework to finish.”

“What? Come back! You can’t just…. Giles?” The Watcher was heading towards the door with Dawn. “You can’t just leave me like this.”

“I’m terribly sorry, but you were quite right. I must do further research. I’m sure you can handle this without me.”

“Be sure to replace the good scotch after your ‘research’,” Spike called out, grinning as the other man responded with a two-fingered salute.

Then he and Dawn were gone, leaving Spike alone with Buffy. He titled his head, studying her. Eyes blazing, spots of color on her cheeks. Teeth clenched so tight it was a wonder her teeth hadn’t shattered. God, but she was gorgeous when she was riled.

“Suppose I could help you out with all this, but we wouldn’t want me getting any ‘phobias,’ now would we?”

“I swear to God, Spike, if you don’t –”

He patted a bit of the webbing into place over her mouth, chuckling at her boiling teakettle sound of rage. Then he got to work getting her untangled.

**...**

_Now:_

_Joyce would love this place._ That bittersweet thought flitted through Spike’s mind as he glanced around the lobby of the police station. Well, maybe not the scattered bits of medical equipment and footprints left in blood, but she’d have appreciated the statues and general museum vibe of the place. Interesting look to it, though he had to wonder what kind of place repurposed a museum into a police station and kept the art.

Probably Sunnydale, now he thought on it. Seemed the sort of thing the late great Mayor Wilkins would have done. He’d have to take a look at the local station once they got back home. _If_ they got back home, which would be a hell of a lot more likely if he stopped with the woolgathering.

He dropped down into a crouch next to a set of footprints and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply through his nose. Fear. Death. Blood, both old and relatively fresh, making him hungry despite all the blood he’d guzzled before leaving the RV.

Buffy lightly nudged him with her foot. “Anything?” she asked quietly. No snarky comments about how “gross” it was that he was sniffing about like an animal. Slayer was definitely worried.

“Lots of people crisscrossing about in the past couple of days,” he answered, opening his eyes as he stood up. He scratched at his injured wrist. Bloody zombie had chomped down hard enough to pierce through his skin. Some of the smaller tooth marks had partially sealed already, but it’d be a bit before it was all healed up. And healing always bloody _itched_. “No one’s been in this area for the past two or three hours, though.”

Buffy took a deep breath, then blew it out noisily. “Because nothing can be easy,” she muttered.

Then she walked past him and over to the receptionist/information desk in the center of the room. There was a large storage box next to a computer showing a security camera feed.

“Empty,” she said, peering into the box. “We can store some things in here while we check out other parts of the sta–”

She froze and stared at the computer. Spike caught the sound of running as he moved forward to get a better look at the monitor. A man in a torn and filthy police uniform had stopped and was staring up at the camera.

“Help,” the man gasped out. “If anyone can hear me…. East wing. Please!”

Then he darted away as a shambling horde came into view.

Buffy immediately dug into the duffel bag, carefully pulling out a sheathed short sword and the handgun Giles had bought for her. Then she tossed him the sword before putting the bag into the storage box.

“Let’s go.”


	8. Chapter 8

It was dark in the east wing. Dark and quiet, except for the sound of her own breathing and her footsteps, just a little uneven from the unfamiliar weight of the gun holstered at her hip. Ahead of her, Spike was a silent smudge of blackness in the dark, topped with the barely visible white of his hair, like some kind of radioactive ghost leading the way.

She vaguely wondered how he managed that, being so silent when half the time, he sounded like an entire herd of elephants. The thought didn’t last long, almost immediately replaced with worry. She could barely see, but going back for the flashlight in the duffel bag wasn’t really an option. Squeezing under the security door between the east wing and lobby would have taken time they didn’t have. Not if they were going to rescue the man they’d seen on the monitor.

She took a slow, deep breath and tried to focus on not tripping over anything in the near-total darkness. One foot in front of the other. Just one step at a time, making progress. One… She squinted, trying to get a better look at the floor. It looked weird, like the darkness was somehow darker.

“Some steps going down in a bit,” Spike murmured.

“Yeah, yeah, I see them. Slayer here, you know? I’m not exactly a normal human.”

That got her an amused snort. “Didn’t see them at all, did you?”

“The top one,” she muttered grumpily as she carefully slid her foot forward to find the edge of the step. “Kind of.”

There was something weirdly soothing about it all. A stolen moment of semi-normalcy while they were making their way through a building infested with contagious T-virus zombies and at least one G-mutant somewhere. _In other words, not really all that far off from our usual “norma–”_

A sudden splash as she came down from the last step startled a squeak out of her and broke her train of thought. “Damn it, Spike!” she hissed as he snickered.

“Sorry, love, thought you’d be able to see it,” he said with a tone that was too full of sincerity to be believed.

Buffy grumbled and shuffled forward a bit. “It” seemed to be a mini-flood that went nearly up to the top of her boots. Great. Just what they needed. There was no telling what was floating around in the water, waiting to trip her up. Then Spike’s hand brushed lightly against hers, his right closing around her left. It felt oddly… warm. Almost as warm as her own. Before she could say anything about it, he started forward, gently tugging her along through the shallow water.

“Smells like a bloody backed up toilet or something,” he muttered.

“Like, literally, or are you just being British?”

“A little bit of both, actually. Though the blood smell–” He froze, and she could almost make out the movement of his head as he tilted it. “I hear something. Think our copper is just up ahead.”

**...**

It was a treasure. The feel of Buffy’s hand in his. Proof that she trusted him, even with the little trick he’d played on her by not warning about the water. He grinned briefly at the thought. Her squeak of surprise had been bloody adorable.

_Focus,_ he told himself, giving her hand a light squeeze. It felt a little cooler than her skin normally was. Maybe still shocky after jumping from the bike. Or from all the death and mayhem. Other than the G-mutant running about – which he was trying not to think on overmuch – and the risk of a T-virus zombie gnawing on Buffy, this was a grand game to him. A horde of the recently human that he had carte blanche to slaughter as he pleased? Fun times as far as he was concerned. A bloody horror show for the slayer.

Do her a world of good if they could save the cop they’d seen on the security footage. He could hear the man just up ahead, and there was starting to be a bit of an upward slope to the hallway, lowering the water level. Safe enough to up their speed a bit.

Half a moment more, and they were on dry ground, standing in front of a door with light spilling out around the edges, showing that at least some parts of this area had power. He considered drawing the sword sheathed across his back, but decided against it. No telling what was on the other side of that door, and he was a brawler at heart. Less chance of friendly fire and setting off the chip if he went with his most familiar weapon. Fists it was, then. The sword could wait.

He gave Buffy’s hand another squeeze before reluctantly letting go. Then he kicked the door open.

Simple office with a cluttered desk. A roll up security door in the opposite corner, shaking as someone beat at it while screaming for help.

“I’ve got the door!” he called out, rushing forward. Better to leave any necessarily manhandling of their boy to the slayer. The bloody chip tended not to understand that sort of thing.

He’d only raised it a couple of feet before the banging stopped and the cop was wiggling under. Smart lad. Spike could hear – and smell – the decaying horde right there behind him. They’d cut it close.

“I’ve got you!” Buffy called out, grabbing for the man’s wrists. “Just rela–”

The horde was there. The man screamed, and Spike smelt the sudden rush of fresh, untainted blood. Hunger slammed into him like a freight train gone off the rails. He shouldn’t have been…. Why…?

Only half a cop. That familiar look of despair and resignation on Buffy’s face as she realized their failure…. There and gone, buried under the wave of hunger as he dropped to his knees beside the growing pool of blood.

**...**

_Then:_

The woman was between her and any other way out, leaving the window as the only option. She went for it, hauling the injured man with her and trying not to think too much about how badly he could be hurt if she didn’t land right.

She’d thought Spike riling up the crazy bitch and getting his ass thrown out the window was a bad thing, but it looked like it was all to the good. She dove out, curling herself around the monk and aiming for the angrily cursing vampire instead of the glass he’d shattered on his own way through.

“Bloody bitch! Bloody buggeri–”

She saw a flash of his face as he noticed her, his eyes widening in surprise. Then there was a grunt as she and the monk slammed into him. They all hit the ground, Spike taking the brunt of the impact as he rolled them a few feet across the parking lot.

Then Buffy was up, on her feet and pulling the monk along with her as carefully as she could. She had to get him out of there. Get him somewhere safe. The hospital. If she could get him to a doctor….

“Stop. Please,” the man gasped out as they got to the chain link fence around the parking lot.

“No. We’ve got to keep going.” It should be easy enough to tear through the fence, especially if Spike helped. Where the hell was he? He hadn’t been hurt that bad by the woman in red, not if he’d been on his feet and swearing after being tossed out a window. “Spike, get over here. I need you to–”

The monk pulled away from her and collapsed against the fence. “My journey’s done, I think.”

“Don’t get all metaphory on me,” she snapped. She wasn’t going to let him just lay down and die. “We’re going.”

“You have to… the key. You must protect the key.”

She didn’t know anything about a key, though it was possible he was talking about the Dagon Sphere she’d found in the area. She didn’t care at the moment. He could tell her all about it at the hospital. “Fine. We can protect the key together, okay?” She reached out for him, trying to get him to his feet. “Just far, far from here.”

“Buffy.” Spike’s voice was soft as he said her name. His hand gentle as it closed around her shoulder, pulling her back. “Let him talk.”

“We have to get him to–”

A simple little shake of the head. His expression was… strange. No sorrow or grief over the thought of the monk dying. He just flat out did. Not. Care. But he cared about her feelings. She could see that. The man dying meant nothing to him.

She didn’t know what to think about that. How to feel. She wanted to hate him for being what he was, but she… couldn’t. He was a monster, trying his best to be a man. Not like….

“Dead man walking before we even got here, love.” The quiet words pulled her out of her own thoughts. “Don’t deny a man his last words.”

“Tell me everything,” she whispered, kneeling beside the monk. She didn’t want to admit it, but she knew Spike was right. The only thing she could do for the man was let him talk.

And he did. He told her about the key. He shattered her world, then started to put it back together in a new configuration. And then he died. One more in the far-too-long line of those she’d failed.

**...**

_Now:_

“I’ve got you!” Buffy called out, lunging forward and reaching down to wrap her hands around the cop’s wrists. He had a small book clutched in one hand, apparently important enough that he’d held onto it. She tugged lightly as he turned under the door, on his back instead of his belly. “Just rela–”

The cop screamed, and it was suddenly even easier to drag him across the floor. Blood. Bits of a human body that she shouldn’t have been seeing. Only half of the man she’d come to save.

“Marv…” he whispered, holding out the book. Then he went limp, the pain and everything else just suddenly gone from his eyes.

_Oh, god, I killed him,_ she thought numbly. She’d torn him in half. She’d…. No. No, that didn’t make sense. Sometimes she forgot when it came to hugs and happy moments, but when the shit was hitting the fan, she was always aware of her own strength. There was no way she could have torn him in half like that with what she’d been using. The zombies….

She hadn’t killed him, but she hadn’t saved him either. She’d failed. She’d failed, and someone had died. It was the story of her life.

There was a soft, hungry little gasp and the sound of something hitting the ground. Spike had fallen to his knees beside the body, staring at the trail of blood.

“Spike?”

His eyes looked… wrong. Mostly black, the pupils overwhelming the blue of his irises even though it was bright in the room. He looked half-starved despite all the blood he’d guzzled down before they’d left the RV. Half-starved and….

He’d pushed back the sleeves of his coat, scratching incessantly at his arms. She could clearly see his injured wrist. Some of the tooth marks were… oozing, and there was a greenish black discoloration that changed to angry redness the farther it got from the wounds.

Hungry and itchy, and that bite. Oh, god. She remembered Dawn’s words. _“Symptoms are being itchy and getting really confused and stuff. And, um, majorly hungry.”_

Spike was infected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amazingly talented Myrabeth has made a banner for this story. It can now be seen on the first chapter, and here:


	9. Chapter 9

She felt… numb. Kind of floaty and numb. Like nothing was quite real. Like maybe _she_ wasn’t quite real….

Dawn stared at her ghostly reflection in the car window. She was real. It didn’t matter what she used to be. She was a person now. She reached out, drawing random patterns on the window with her fingers as she thought back to when Buffy and Spike had sat her down to talk to her about it. Giles and Mom had been there, too, told only an hour before. They’d said that it wasn’t just Buffy. That she was special, too. Even more special, because there was just one of her, and there had been lots of slayers over the years.

Or, well, Spike had told her all that. Buffy had just kept babbling about how they were sisters no matter what, which had been kind of freaky. Dawn had been half convinced she was going to be told she was adopted….

But, nope. She’d been a cuckoo stuck in the nest. A blob of energy turned into a real human girl. _I definitely hurt too much to not be real,_ she thought as the numbness started to fade, and all of the bumps, scrapes, and bruises started complaining louder. She shivered, suddenly cold as her thoughts turned to what had just happened.

She remembered it in bits and pieces. The semi truck coming right for them. Giles grabbing her and the bag they’d packed up in case they had to leave the RV in a hurry. Things were fuzzy after that, only really coming into focus again with them outside, on the ground with bits of metal flying all around them. Bits and pieces. Fuzzy images of being up on her feet again, Giles saying something to her while a man staggered out of the smashed cab of the semi.

The man had been clutching at his neck. She remembered that clearly. It had looked like something had taken a huge bite out of him. His eyes had been all filmy and white as he’d lurched towards them…. Then there’d been a loud sound from beside her, and the man had fallen. Giles. With a gun. He’d gone from nerdy watcher guy to scary badass Giles. He’d even hotwired a car.

Another public service announcement blared over some kind of area wide speakers, telling everyone to go to the police station for food and medicine. “Do you think they made it there?” she asked, glancing towards the driver’s seat.

“Most likely,” Giles answered, not taking his eyes from the road. There were cars everywhere, leaving barely enough room for the car to squeeze through. “Both of their dreams indicated they’d end up in the police station. Your sister is very resourceful, and she has Spike watching her back.”

She nodded and gazed down at her arm. Bruises and scratches. And a scar. A reminder that Spike looked after those he cared about. Buffy wasn’t alone in this nightmare. She was the slayer, and she had Spike as backup. They’d be alright.

And once Dawn and Giles caught up with them, they’d all be safe.

**...**

_Then: _

Dawn stared at her neatly bandaged wound. A large telfa pad hidden from sight under the gauze wrapped around her arm. She’d waited until after Mom was in bed, and Buffy had gone off for a solo patrol. Then she’d snagged one of Buffy’s knives before slipping into the bathroom. She’d held the knife in one hand. Held it, and….

The mirror had only shown her own face — pale, with eyes that seemed too big — even when someone else had come in behind her. She’d stared into that partially empty mirror while Spike had quietly dressed the wound. She’d watched the gauze magically wind itself around her arm.

After that she’d been herded into Buffy’s room and helped out the window and up onto the roof. Spike had finally said something at that point, telling her to stay put and that he’d be back in a minute. _I should go,_ she thought vaguely. Just climb down and run off into the darkness.

Before she could, there was a sound, followed by Spike appearing and sitting down beside her. He pulled a bottle of something out of his coat and took a long drink from it.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” she said quietly, hugging her knees to her chest. He didn’t say anything. Just sat there, staring up at the stars. She almost wished he would yell at her or something. Tell her she was a stupid kid. “I just…. I needed to see. You know? If I bled human blood.”

He shifted beside her, raising up his arm like he was going to hug her or something. She tensed. She didn’t want that. To be hugged and coddled like a baby or a pet. That’s what she was prepared for. Instead, she got a smack across the back of her head.

“Ow! What the he—” She started to glare at him, then froze. The hand he’d hit her with was clutching at his own head while the other kept a death grip on his bottle of booze. He’d triggered the chip. On purpose. “Dumbass,” she grumbled.

His lips twitched into a slight smile. “Just a bit,” he agreed. “Proved the point, though, yeah? Don’t matter what you started as, chip confirms you’re human now.” He took another drink, then added, “Smell of your blood proves it, too.”

She glanced down at her arm. “Is that why you came up? You smelled my blood all the way from the basement?”

That was… kind of cool. She knew Buffy thought the smelling thing was creepy, but Dawn thought it was a pretty good superpower. Well, unless you spent a lot of time in a gym locker room, or something.

“Living room, actually. I figured somethin’ like this would happen. Teenage bundle of hormones and insecurity, and then all this? Tried to break it to you easy, but that doesn’t change the fact that your entire world just got flipped arse over teakettle.”

“Oh.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. It was all confusing. She remembered all kinds of stuff that had never actually happened. A life she hadn’t really lived. And she was tired of thinking about it. She glanced at Spike out of the corner of her eye, watching as he brought the bottle back up for another drink. “So, if you can smell blood from that far, how come you never come charging in to check on us during our periods?”

He choked. She’d meant to embarrass him a little and, yeah, to maybe make him spit out his drink, but he was wheezing and making all kinds of weird sounds. “Spike?” He wasn’t going to have a stroke, was he? She didn’t think vampires could do that, what with the whole being dead thing. Riley probably would have, if she’d said it to him. And if he wasn’t a more dead kind of dead. 

“Good god, Bit, give me a smidge more credit than that,” he gasped out, and she suddenly realized he was laughing. “What, you thought I’d spent the last century or so as a cloistered monk or somesuch? Only hanging about with other men and wrinkled old nuns past menopause? Vampire here, little bit. I can tell the difference between what’s pulsing through your veins and a bird on the rag.”

He shook his head and actually wiped tears from his eyes. Then he held his bottle out to her. “Here. This’ll calm your nerves and help you get some sleep tonight.”

She hesitantly took the bottle and brought it up to her lips. It burned. Liquid heat that seemed to sear her tongue. Nasty, but she kind of liked it, too, especially once she’d swallowed, letting that heat settle down into her core. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d felt until that feeling of warmth.

“Not too much, now,” Spike cautioned, taking the bottle back and downing a swig. “Just enough to get you nicely fuzzed, not drunk.”

“Worried about what Buffy would do if you got her little sister drunk?”

He snorted at that and passed her the bottle. “Nah. If big sis found out, she’d kick my arse from here to next Tuesday, but she’d get over it. Your mum on the other hand….” He shuddered and took the bottle back after she’d had another small sip. “She’d chain me up here right before sunrise and bloody well watch my dust blow away in the wind.”

She giggled at that, feeling loose and easy and warm. She remembered back when her mom had gone after him with that ax…. Except, she didn’t. She hadn’t really been there that night. The giggle died away, and some of the warmth seemed to go with it. She hadn’t been there, but she remembered it. Remembered all kinds of things.

“Buffy always says you aren’t her boyfriend,” she said quietly, “but you feel more like it than Angel or Riley ever did. Angel acted like we were in the way, and Riley just sort of tolerated us. But you actually care. About me and Mom.”

He was silent for a bit, staring up at the sky and drinking. Then he sighed. “Don’t need a soul to care. Or a conscious. I like you and Joyce. You both treat me fair. But even if you didn’t, I’d look out for you. Your sis…. I’d cut my own heart out and offer it to her on a silver platter, if it would please her. Taking care of her loved ones, when I already like ‘em? Easy, that.” He looked at her then, eyes intense. “No matter what, you can count on me. Promise.”

She slowly nodded, then looked away, unable to keep staring into those bright blue eyes. “Okay… big brother.”

He laughed softly, then closed his bottle and stood up. “Come on, pidge.” He held his hand out to her. “Let’s get you tucked in before Buffy comes back.”

He got her back into the house through the window, and then escorted her to her own room, leaving her to change into her jammies and climb into bed on her own. She fell asleep feeling safe and loved.

**...**

_Now:_

Hungry. So… _hungry_. Red. Wet and glistening in the light. Trails and pools, dripping from fresh bits of meat. _Itchy._ Skitter, skitter. Scratch, scratch…_ scratch_. Ants crawling about under his skin. Biting and crawling, and so, so _hungry_. The red. The red would help. Make the skitter scatter ants go away. No more itch. No more hunger.

Closer. Closer. Just right there. Red and glistening. Burst of flavor along his tongue. Life and death and…_hungry._ Lap, lap, lap. Drink it down. Follow the trail. Fresh meat. Raw meat. Just right there. He could rip and tear and….

The itching faded. A voice. A woman. Fresh meat. _No._ A voice inside. Firm. Insistent. _No!_ Who…? The woman wasn’t meat. Wasn’t food. She was…. Spike. He was Spike, and she was….

He was on the floor, nose only millimeters from the dead man’s bloody entrails. His mouth was open, pressed to the ground, sucking in the precious drops of red. Why was…? What had…?

He shoved himself up onto his hands and knees, scrambling away until his back slammed into the wall. Oh, god. What had he…? What was…? Where…?

“Spike?”

Buffy. She suddenly came into focus, crouched near the dead body. He could hear something, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the stricken look in her eyes.

Oh god. Oh god, what had he done? What had…? He looked away, down at his wrist. Swollen and red. A greenish tinge that was fading even as he watched. Fading as his thoughts continued to clear. He looked back towards Buffy. At the gun now in her hand.

Bloody hell.

**...**

Buffy watched in sick horror as Spike flopped bonelessly forward from his knees onto his belly, wriggling forward like some kind of mindless… _thing._ His mouth was open as he sucked and lapped at the blood, sort of shoveling it into his mouth as he kept writhing up towards the dead man’s body. Wriggle. Twitch. Horrible, jerky movements that propelled him closer to the body.

Any minute, and he’d start pulling out organs, cramming them into his mouth with the same kind of mindless hunger as the rest of the zombies. The rest of the zombies…. _Oh god. _She was going to be sick. If he started eating the cop, she knew she was going to be sick. But not until after she’d….

“Spike?” she whispered. “Come on, don’t do this to me. Please.”

Was she imagining things, or was there a flicker of… _something_ on his face? No. It was there. She could see it in his eyes as confusion fought with mindless hunger. But was it real? She’d thought she’d seen hints of the Angel she’d known after….

He made a strange little distressed noise as he shoved himself away from the body, scrambling back until he ran into the wall. “Spike?”

He looked confused and disoriented, but it was damn well _Spike_ staring at her from those eyes. _Oh, thank God,_ she thought, feeling weak with relief. She wouldn’t have to—

There was a sound from the security door as one of the zombies started to wriggle under. Shit. She’d forgotten about them. She drew her gun, barely aware of Spike flinching at the sight of it, then stood up and fired.

The sound was nearly deafening, but she’d expected it, and her aim was true. She’d practiced a little after Giles had picked up the weapons. She didn’t like guns, but using them had come as easily to her as any other weapon. She got a head shot on both the first zombie and the one that had started coming in beside it.

Damn it. She hadn’t brought any of the extra ammo with her. They needed to get out of there. Head back to the lobby with the rest of the ammo and weapons.

She reached down to grab the book out of the cop’s hand and stuff it into her pocket, then glanced over at Spike. He was on his feet, wiping the blood off his face, head tilted as he studied the situation.

“Time to fall back,” he said, voice rough and shaky.

Then he moved, and she suddenly found herself in the air, tossed over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes as he rushed out into the dark hallway they’d come from.


	10. Chapter 10

There were things in the dark behind them. Soft rustles of clothing. Thumps as bodies bumped into walls. Low, hungry moans. Lost, mindless bastards seeking sustenance to ease a hunger that could never be assuaged…

Even with the taste of tainted human blood still lingering on his tongue, Spike could feel the echo of that hunger. He tried to shove it back. To ignore it, along with the deep ache in his wrist. He was himself at the moment, but there was no telling how long it would last. Human blood was more potent than animal, especially when it came to healing, but the virus-laden soup he’d sucked up off the floor hadn’t magically cured him. Had probably made things even worse.

_Don’t think on it,_ he told himself, putting on a bit more speed. _Now’s not the time._

He had to get Buffy back to the lobby, where she could see and had the ammunition she’d need to fight. If one of the things behind them got to her…. If she was bitten….

She was a tense weight over his shoulder, holding herself rigid instead of just letting herself slump limply. Part of it was no doubt so she could stare into the darkness behind them. Another part…. He knew her well enough. Knew she was fighting the urge to struggle free. If she struggled, the chip could decide he was trying to hurt her. Even if it didn’t, her trying to get free and run right now would slow them down. And the things in the dark would catch up.

If they got to her when she couldn’t effectively fight back…. _I’ll kill her first,_ he thought grimly. If she got bit…. Grab up one of the guns and just start firing. The chip would go off as soon as he so much as pointed a gun in her general direction. No clue what would happen to him if he was actually aiming to kill, but he didn’t give a damn. He’d take care of his slayer. Wouldn’t let her become a zombie.

_Yeah, well, move your arse, and maybe it won’t be a problem._ He could see light ahead, coming under the first rolling security door they’d come across, the one between the east wing and the lobby. Bloody thing had jammed only a couple of feet up, and they’d just left it.

“Almost there,” he said.

Then, just as she started to move around, he bent and set her on the ground on her back. One push, and she was under the door, vanishing from sight as an unfamiliar male voice said he had her. Bloody hell!

He felt something at his back as he dropped down. Something pawing at his leg as he slid under. Then an exhausted looking black man in a police uniform was pulling him the rest of the way through before Buffy slammed the security door down. Safe. For now.

Was a right nasty wound on the man’s side, and Spike could smell the infection coming off it in waves. Wouldn’t be much longer before they’d another zombie to deal with.

“Marvin Branagh, Raccoon City Police,” the cop said. “You two alright?”

“Marv,” Buffy murmured. Then she glanced down at the man’s wound before looking to Spike.

Bloody hell. Another one she wouldn’t be able to save. He slowly got to his feet, making eye contact with her as he shook his head slightly. That same look of despair and resignation washed across her face before she replaced it with something more neutral.

“We’re fine,” Buffy said. “More or less. But I can’t say the same for the man who gave me this.” She pulled the little book out of her pocket. “This is for you.”

“Damn,” Marvin muttered, carefully taking the book as if he thought it might bite. “Come on. We’ve got things to talk about.”

Then he slowly made his way towards the center of the lobby, clutching at the wound in his side. The one that wouldn’t have been fatal in pretty much any other situation.

**...**

_Then: _

She didn’t remember sitting down. Just needing to get out of the house. Going outside. And now she was sitting on the porch steps, and she wasn’t entirely sure how long she had been there.

Mom was…. Buffy wrapped her arms around herself. Her mother was going to spend the night in the hospital. _It’s probably a good thing,_ she told herself.

The passing out. The headaches. Something was clearly wrong, even if the trance she’d done hadn’t shown anything. Maybe the overnight stay at the hospital would give better results. Maybe the doctors would be able to point to something this time, and just say, “oh, this is the problem.” And then just… fix it. Fix Mom. All better.

The door opened, and then someone was sitting down beside her. They moved in sync, Buffy leaning in against Spike’s chest just as he slid an arm around her shoulder. Would Riley have been there like that for her, if she hadn’t been forced to kill him a month ago? Or would he have been so obsessed with finding Walsh that she would have ended up leaning on Spike for comfort, anyway? The familiar grief and anger barely stirred. The mind-numbing terror over her mom was too heavy, holding all other feelings down.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. There was nothing for her to fight. Nothing she could punch until Mom was all better.

“What _can_ you do?” Spike asked.

Okay, that was seriously unhelpful. She already knew there was nothing she could do. That she was useless right now. She didn’t need her nose rubbed in it, but she couldn’t even summon up the energy to be mad at him.

“Not meant to be a rhetorical question, slayer,” he said sharply. “Nothing you can do to make your mum all better, but that don’t mean you can’t do anything at all.”

What _could_ she do? She felt sluggish. Stupid. It didn’t feel like she could do anything at all, other than just sit there. “I… I don’t know. I guess….”

“Life goes on, even with your mum not feeling her best. I can take over all of the cooking.” His voice was gentler now. “What can you do?”

Buffy blinked, forcing herself to think. Mom was sick, but the world was still turning. Things still had to be done, and there was a lot that had been giving Mom trouble lately. Things that Buffy had been helping with, but hadn’t fully taken over. Just like Spike with the cooking.

“I can wash the dishes,” she said. “Maybe work out a schedule with Dawn with them. And with cleaning. I guess I can help her with her homework.”

“That’s my girl.” She didn’t have to see his face to know he was smiling at her. She wanted to insist that she wasn’t his girl, but couldn’t seem to form the words. “I’ll help out with the homework, too. Maths and science, and such. Probably for the best if I don’t try with that nonsense you lot call English.”

She couldn’t manage a laugh, but her lips twitched up into a smile. Then the smile fell, and she just sat there, leaning against him and letting him hold her. Half the time, she didn’t know how she felt about him, but right now, she was grateful for another real adult there while Mom was sick. It helped her feel more in control. Less like a little kid in over her head.

“You’ll drown in the can’ts, if you aren’t careful,” he said quietly. “Went through that myself with Dru and with…. If you just keep focusing on what you can’t do, you’ll never get ‘round to what you _can_. Just remember that. Focusing on the can’t never helps anyone.”

Focusing on the can’t…. There were so many things she couldn’t do. So many things that she’d failed at. Riley. Angel. Ford. All of the victims she hadn’t been in time to save.

She took a deep breath and just… let it go. For a little bit anyway. For right now. She could let go of all of her couldn’ts and think about all the things she _could_ do.

**...**

_Now:_

Step, step, step, turn. Step, step, step turn. Not enough. He needed something more. He swiped a retractable pen from the receptionist desk. Step, step, step, turn. _Click, click_. Step, step, step, turn. _Click, click_. That was good. He could work with that.

He took a slow, deep breath. _Click, click_. Step, step, step, turn. _Click, click_. Step, step, step, turn. _Click, click_. _Click, click_. Deep breaths. In and out. _Click, click_. Step, step. _Click, click._ Step, turn. _Click, click_.

Focus inward. Feel his body. _Click, click_. _Clickety-click_. Tune out the drone of Buffy and Dead Man Walking. Or sitting rather. They were up near the large statue of a woman that Buffy had seen in her dream, sitting on a leather bench seat while talking about whatever was in that book. She shot him an annoyed look as he continued clicking the pen, but didn’t say anything. Probably because of the worry lurking there under the annoyance.

Another slow, deep breath. He needed to focus, not let his attention wander. He closed his eyes. _Click, click_. Pace and click, find the relative calm of the motion. Feel his own energy, starting with the tingly buzz of slayer power concentrated in his left hand. The feeling of it faded away not far past his wrist. The other wrist, though….

Sludge. A thick soup of tangled nastiness that was creeping down into his hand and up into his arm. The normal sparking hum of his own demonic energies were fighting back, trying to stop the creeping sludge, but it was as he’d thought. His healing was going strong, but the infection was stronger.

He’d be a liability if he didn’t find a source of untainted human blood, and he wasn’t even certain that would be enough at this point. The only option was slayer blood. Enough to destroy the infection without leaving Buffy too depleted.

He opened his eyes, still in a calm, near-trance state. He tucked the pen into his pocket, then lifted both of his hands, staring at them as he slowly curled them into fists before straightening them back out. Then again. And again. He was barely aware of the surges of pain in his wrist as he did it. One hand full of slayer power combined with vampire. The other infected with a virus that would turn him into a mindless…_thing_. If only there were a way to –

“Spike.”

Buffy’s voice cut into his thoughts, pulling him completely back to reality as she walked towards him. She’d left good ol’ Marv sitting back by the statue.

“We’ve got a lead on those medallions from my dream.” She held up the little book, then put it in her pocket. “I’ll tell you about it while we look for survivors.”

Survivors…. The hunger stirred. If there were any true survivors, they’d be untainted. Fresh, clean blood. Bodies made up of tasty bits of flesh and….

_No._ _Bloody well not going to consider any of Buffy’s survivors as dinner_. He froze for a moment at that thought. Dinner…. Bloody hell.

**...**

_Then:_

There was incense lit and some sort of red sand spread about on the floor in a circle. The slayer was sat in the middle of it with her eyes closed, lotus-style and looking vaguely constipated.

“What’s all this meant to be, then?” Spike asked. “And why is it keeping you from getting your arse downstairs to eat the pot roast I’ve been slaving over for the past six hours? Nibblet said you’ve been up here doing some sort of smelly magic.”

“Smelly” was definitely one way to describe it. It smelt like the sorts of incense Dru had sometimes used, but even she’d had the sense not to do it in a closed up bedroom.

Buffy’s eyes snapped open. “Pot roast? Six hours? Didn’t you just…?” She blinked and glanced over at the clock. Then her entire body seemed to deflate a bit. “Damn. I’ve been trying to do a magic trance thing Tara recommended. She… she said I’d be able to see it. If anyone was using magic to hurt Mom.”

Ah. So that was the way of it, then. His annoyance immediately drained away. He hadn’t smelt any magic around Joyce. Didn’t necessarily mean anything since he couldn’t always smell that sort of thing, but he strongly suspected that whatever was wrong was natural. Joyce was just… sick. No telling Buffy that, though. Not yet. She wouldn’t believe him until she’d confirmed it herself. Tried whatever she could to find an enemy she could vanquish.

He tilted his head to the side, studying the setup she had going on. He wasn’t sure if the ritual she was attempting really needed all that rubbish, but she was definitely going about getting into the trance state all wrong.

“Stand up.”

“Spike….”

“Stand up,” he repeated, circling around her. “You’re more likely to pass out from boredom than go into a trance like that.”

She gave him a dubious look but stood up anyway. “And what, exactly, would you know about trances?”

“Quite a bit more than you obviously think. May not be a witch, but I know my way around a ritual.” He raised a brow. “Remember what I was doing before you dropped a bloody organ on me.”

A look of contrition spread across her face, and she opened her mouth, probably to apologize. Then her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, no. You totally had that coming, and you know it.”

Fair point. From _her_ perspective, at least. From his, well, he’d just been saving the woman he loved, hadn’t he? But none of that was important at the moment.

“You get into a trance by stilling your thoughts,” he pointed out. “A lot of people, they do it by stilling their bodies, first. For the likes of you and me, though? Not our style. If we’re not moving about, it means our thoughts are doing it instead. No way to have both completely still. So, what you need to do is stand in your little circle there and go through a set of exercises.”

Another dubious look, but, again, she did as he’d asked. Some simple stretches that flowed into a series of fighting moves, all kept contained within that circle of sand. Not bad. He walked around her as she moved, clapping his hands together lightly in time to her heartbeat.

“Now, just let yourself move. Don’t try to think or not think. Close your eyes and just be.”

That was it. She was moving faster, but her heart rate was staying fairly even. All her worries temporarily drifting away. Suddenly, she went completely still for a moment before her eyes snapped open. They were dilated and slightly glassy, like she was looking beyond the world.

She stared in his general direction, her gaze locking on his left hand. Then she turned and headed out the room.

Spike took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Well. Seemed to have worked, then, hadn’t it? He quickly cleaned up the mess of sand on the floor, then waited for her to return. Shouldn’t take her long to go have a look at her mum. And she’d need support, whether she found anything or not.

She was back after roughly five minutes, looking pale as a ghost.

“Buffy?”

“I….” She blinked at him. “There was nothing. Around Mom.” She stopped talking for a moment and shuddered. “But Dawn…. She kept vanishing.”

**...**

_Now:_

Dawn had vanished. He’d sent her ahead deeper into the hardware store while he’d worked on blocking the main doors, and now he couldn’t bloody find the girl. He moved quietly through the shelves, gun in one hand, his finger near – but not on – the trigger.

“Dawn,” he called softly.

No response. No sounds of a teenage girl shifting about. No moans or shuffles from any of the walking dead.

There’d been too many of them out on the main road, along with too many abandoned cars. If they were going to make it to the police station, they’d have to try for the back alleys. And Dawn would need some kind of weapon. She’d no experience with firearms, and unlike her sister, she’d no supernatural affinity for weapons that would have made her an expert in very little time. The hardware store had seemed like a safe choice.

Seemed being the operative word there. No indication that any zombies had broken in, but he also couldn’t find –

There. A sound. Giles spun towards it, finger sliding towards the trigger…. Then he jerked it away and pointed the gun at the floor as Dawn came out of the ladies’ room.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Had to pee. And I, uh, found this.” She held up a bright blue crowbar. “Figured I could use it to, you know…” She trailed off as she swung it through the air a few times.

He nodded slowly as he eyed her makeshift weapon. And prayed to ever god he’d every heard of that they could somehow avoid her having to use it.


	11. Chapter 11

He was starting to feel itchy again. Not too bad. Mostly around the tooth marks in his wrist. There was also a sort of proto-itch along his upper back and hiding just under the skin of his shoulders. Not quite there. Not driving him mad with the need to scratch. But he could feel it waiting to pounce.

He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the sensation a bit while also readjusting the backpack he was wearing. The straps were a bit loose, to make it easier to draw the sword still sheathed under it. Since that was the closest to a distance weapon the bloody chip would allow him, the backpack was filled with extra ammo for Buffy, along with some basic first aid supplies, a couple bottles of Gatorade, and some snacks. More of it all was tucked away still in the storage box, since they’d likely be back and forth to the lobby a few times.

Still itchy and almost-itchy, but he tried to ignore it and focus on the business at hand. Buffy had settled the rifle across her back and was double checking the ammo pouches on her holster belt. It was odd seeing her all decked out like that, but fitting. A warrior, no matter the weapons she used and the situations she found herself in.

“I think that’s everything we’ll need for now,” she said, handing him a flashlight before closing up the box. “Come on.”

Then she led the way to yet another security door, this one leading to the west side of the building and looking more like the type used to close the shops in a mall. The others had looked more like garage doors. Maybe it had been a gift shop or cafe back in the museum days, but now it seemed to be a place to pay off traffic tickets and the like.

Then and now, neither one much mattered at the moment. Buffy cut through the tape sealing up the control panel for the door, and they were in. A quiet little place with no zombies, and where there was no chance of Dead Meat Marv overhearing and asking questions that he wouldn’t really want the answers to.

Before Spike could say anything, though, Buffy started, going on about those medallions being locked away in statues, including the one of a lion at the back of the lobby. There were codes, and….

She seemed to go on and on forever, even though he knew, distantly, that it had been barely any time at all. Just an eternity of trying to listen while he was so. Damn. _Itchy._ Itchy, itchy, itchy. And the hunger was growing by the second. He stared at her exposed neck. No clothes or anything to get in the way. Just sink his teeth in and rip out her throat. Chew, chew, chew the meat and lap up the blood.

No. No, couldn’t do that. Needed to eat the slayer to get better, but not like that. Couldn’t do that to her. She was his slayer. She was Buffy. Also, the thing. The thing in his head…. What was he thinking about? Hungry. Itchy.

He grabbed his wounded wrist and _squeezed,_ the pain bringing him back to his senses. For a bit, at least, but he’d no illusions about it lasting much longer.

“Buffy,” he interrupted. “Got a bit of good news/bad news for you. Good news is, I figured out that whole ‘before dinner’ thing from the dreams. Bad news is that ‘dinner’ means me going ‘round the bloody bend and eating someone. And not in my usual, suave way of eating someone.”

He held out his wrist for her to see, and she paled. Puffy, with redness radiating out into his hand and up his arm. The area of the bite, though, was chalky white with a disturbing greenish tinge. And it smelt of infection and rot.

She stared blankly for a moment, then her eyes widened. “My hand,” she blurted out. “The Manus Dextra card cutting into my hand was supposed to have something to do with the dinner thing.”

She pulled her knife back out, and before Spike could even put together what she was doing, she’d punctured the heel of her right hand, under the thumb. He knew he needed it, but for a moment, he just stared, fighting back the hunger. If he took too much….

“I have guns,” she said quietly. “Having to hold back a little and fight from a distance if I get woozy is a lot better than having you… not be you. I need you to watch my back more than I need all of my blood.”

His mouth watered as he stared at her hand. Blood was trailing down from the puncture, a drop or two already fallen to the ground. Then he was at her side, his mouth sealed around the wound, licking and sucking. Letting the anticoagulant in his saliva draw the blood out more as the euphoretic gave back in pleasure what he took out in sustenance.

**...**

_Then:_

He stared at the couch, not quite comprehending what he was seeing. She’d come home after a dinner date that had ended with breakfast, feeling good and wanting to tell him all about it. He’d just gone to the kitchen to put the kettle on, and now she….

No pulse. No breath. Eyes that stared up at nothing. She’d just been…. And now….

_I can fix this,_ he thought numbly, fumbling a folding knife out of his jeans pocket and opening it up. Hadn’t bitten her. Hadn’t been the reason for her…. But maybe that didn’t really matter. It hadn’t been long at all. If he could get his blood into her….

He didn’t remember opening the knife or cutting his wrist, but he must have, because he was kneeling beside her, and a drop of his blood was on her bluish lips. Just had to open her mouth and let the blood flow in.

Before he could, there was a flash of memory. A screaming, frightened woman in his arms. Her sickly blood in his mouth. Nearly dead, and then he’d bitten into his own wrist and….

“No!”

Spike flung himself away from Joyce’s body, shaking and trying desperately to lock the memories up again. No. No, no, no. He’d bitten and…. She’d come back _wrong_. Thinking of him that way…. Coming at him like that…. No, no, no. Lock it away. Couldn’t think on it. Hadn’t happened. Never, never, never. He didn’t make other vampires. Just wasn’t his thing, like torture or rape. All of them, things that just didn’t appeal. It wasn’t because he’d….

Pain and calmness as the knife slid into his skin, over and over. _There’ll be blood on the floor,_ he thought vaguely. _Mustn’t get blood on the floor. Mother will be upset. _No. No, not Mother. Joyce. Except Joyce was gone. And Mother was gone. Gone. Gone away to dust and….

Didn’t matter. He couldn’t just bleed all over the living room floor. It wasn’t respectful. He crawled away to the kitchen, where he could bleed and try not to think.

**...**

_Then: _

There were flowers on the table by the front door. Buffy grinned and read the note from her mother’s new boyfriend. _Way to go, Mom!_ It was good to see her finally back in the dating game and not with some creepy robot guy. Or Giles.

She shuddered as the thought of police cars and handcuffs washed through her mind. Nope. Not going to think about it. What happened with freaky band candy stayed with freaky band candy.

She’d just managed to shake off the mental images when she finally noticed it. The smell….

Someone had been smoking in the house. Spike never smoked in the house. Not even down in his bedroom. Mom didn’t like it, and he’d always respected that. Why would he…?

She walked into the living room, and all thoughts of Spike rushed from her head.

“Mom?” Why was she laying like that? On the couch with one arm dangling over the side. Her eyes were staring up blankly at the ceiling. “Mom?” Buffy’s legs felt like lead as she forced them to carry her towards the couch. “Mommy?”

She was on her knees beside the couch. Mom was pale and still. No rise and fall of her chest. No spark in those glassy, staring eyes. A drop of blood glistening on her lower lip. Blood…. No wounds. No bites at her throat or anywhere else that she could see. But there was blood on her lip.

Mostly numb, but an icy rage gripped her heart. Things went blurry for a bit, but then she was in the kitchen, marching towards where Spike was huddled on the floor with a lit cigarette in his mouth. She pulled him up with one hand, the other grabbing the cigarette and throwing it into the sink. Then she punched him in the face.

“What did you do?” she snarled, shaking him. “What did you do to her?”

She saw the strange, wild look in his eyes. Looking too big for a face that was even paler than normal. Saw him struggle to lock away whatever he was feeling. And finally noticed his sliced-up arms. The holes in his disturbingly wet black t-shirt. The pool of blood on the floor. And the knife lying next to it.

“Oh, god,” she whispered. “What did you do?”

She didn’t understand any of it. Mom was… And there was that drop of blood on her mouth. And Spike had gone to the kitchen, hurting himself and smoking in the house. None of it made any sense.

“I didn’t…. I just went to make some tea. She was fine. She was happy. And then….” He shuddered, that wild look back in his eyes. “I didn’t turn her. I thought…. But I didn’t do it. Probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. Just a drop of blood, and it didn’t even go in. I couldn’t….”

He shuddered again, and Buffy suddenly found herself held in his arms, his bloodied hands stroking her hair. “It’s going to be alright,” he whispered hoarsely. “Not at first. Not for a long while, but eventually. Whatever you need…. Anything at all.”

Eventually…. Oh, god. Mom was…. Her mommy was….? A whimper escaped her, and her knees suddenly gave out. She didn’t fall though. Spike lowered her down, still holding her and petting her hair. He was trembling. From both emotion and weakness. All the blood on the floor…. And Mom was…. Her mommy was….

Emptiness and dread and a horrible, terrible grief trying to claw up through the numbness. Her mom was…. And there was nothing she could do. Nothing at all. Except…. _What _can _you do?_

She leaned into Spike, her hand creeping forward across the floor, grabbing the knife. Then she pushed away from him and slashed at her arm, right near the bend of her elbow.

“Buffy!”

“She’s…. Mom’s…. She’s…. I can’t… I can’t fix it. I can’t make it better. I need to fix something.” She was babbling. She wasn’t even really sure of what she was saying. She just had to…. “Please. I need to fix _something_. I can…. I need to make something better.”

He was staring at her, his head tilted to the side as he watched her with those eyes that always saw too much. Then she was in his arms again, his mouth pressed against her skin.

A moment of pain as he sucked at the wound before everything was washed away in a surge of euphoria.

**...**

_Now: _

Her hand had been neatly bandaged up, and she was washing down a Twinkie and big piece of jerky with gulps of cherry Gatorade. Buffy shuddered slightly, thinking of all of the gore she’d already seen, and what was likely in store. Luckily, being the slayer came with a cast iron stomach. She could go out in the middle of the carnage and eat a plate of spaghetti loaded with marinara, and she wouldn’t barf. It would be really super gross, but she wouldn’t throw up or even be less hungry.

Hungry and horny. The “curse” of the slayer. Though that bite had kind of helped with that last bit. She shivered, still feeling weirdly floaty and heavy at the same time. And sort of deliciously tingly. She’d only given Spike blood “straight from the tap” twice before now. The first time, he’d been too hurt after what Adam did to him to even think of being gentle. The second time….

Grief grabbed a hold of her heart and squeezed. Hard. God, had it really only been a couple of weeks since the burial?

It felt like forever ago. And like it had all just happened. Barely twenty and her mother was….

“You alright, love?” Spike asked.

She finished off the Gatorade before answering, giving herself time to get everything together. Now wasn’t the time to think about Mom, or they’d end up joining her. “Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

He definitely looked better. The tooth marks were still there, and the wrist was still kind of swollen, but all the red and nasty green were gone.

He took a slow, deep breath and rubbed at the wound. “Not one hundred percent. But I’m healing better.”

She had to fight the urge to rip the bandage off her hand and give him more blood. He’d taken as much as he’d thought was safe. If she needed to play juice box again, it would be better later, after she’d had a bit of time for her to replace some of the blood she’d lost.

Then it was her turn for a slow, deep breath as she turned to face the door that would lead to the west wing of the building. They were safe at the moment. But once they went through that door.

“Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my,” she muttered.

“So, same old, same old for us, then?”

Yeah, that did about sum it up, didn’t it? Monsters that had once been human and could turn you with a bite. Potential victims to try to save. Same old, same old.

“Yep. Let’s do this.”

They headed to the door together, then stepped on through.


	12. Chapter 12

The stench of rot and infection permeating the hallway was thick enough to practically bathe in. The lights worked, but they were dim and flickering, casting shifting shadows. Was the mangled corpse at the turn of the hall twitching, or was it all just a trick of the light?

Spike strode past Buffy, drawing the sword and cutting off the corpse’s head in one smooth motion. The slayer gave him a look, and he just shrugged before sheathing the sword.

“With the general stink hereabouts, no way to tell if a still body is going to stay that way. Best to just assume and not leave anything behind us to attack.”

She nodded and led the way slowly down the hall. More dim lights. Debris. Broken windows to the outdoors with boards over them, trying to keep the nasties at bay. All but useless to try to keep it out when the infection had already found a way inside.

The infection…. He flexed his hand into a fist a few times. Some of the tooth marks had fully healed, but others hadn’t even scabbed over yet. And the ache was still there, deep down. Could mean nothing. He _was_ healing. He knew he was. But was he healing enough? If he took more blood from Buffy….

He took a slow, deep breath and forced himself to focus, listening for any stray heartbeats or breathing as he followed her through the hall. Not but soft, hungry moans and the sounds of the woman in front of him.

She tried a door to the right, letting them into a well-lit – and empty – room. There was a small stage with a podium and chalkboard, along with seating everywhere. Probably where the patrol cops got their assignments at the start of each shift. Not that it really mattered what the room was for.

“Looks like we can at least resupply here if we need to,” Buffy said quietly as she glanced around. “Marvin said he and some of the other cops had been trying to set up areas like this once the infection started to spread inside.”

First aid kits. Unopened bottles of water and packages of food. Even several boxes of bullets, all laid out and waiting for anyone who came along. Made sense, he supposed. Zombies wouldn’t have much use for guns or ammo, while the survivors….

He clenched and unclenched his fist. No point dwelling too much on things. He’d either fully heal, or he wouldn’t. And if it was the latter…. Well, they’d figure out some kind of contingency plan, wouldn’t they?

**...**

_Then:_

“…not planning to die. This is all just a contingency plan.”

It should have looked ridiculous. A grown woman in a shabby bathrobe, propped up by pillows in her bed while she talked to the two men she’d invited up to her room. There was a quiet seriousness about everything, though, that kept it from looking ridiculous. Looking being the operative word, because what Joyce was proposing sounded nothing but.

“Are you out of your bleeding mind?” Spike pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning on and started to pace. He didn’t want to think about this. About Buffy’s mum – his friend – dying. But there was that bloody tumor in her head, and it didn’t care a whit what any of them wanted. “Willing the house to me is daft enough, but all this with Dawn? You can’t just hand her over like that. She’s a child, not a bloody couch.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Joyce said dryly. Then she focused her attention on Giles. “How long would it take for your contacts to create a respectable legal identity for Spike?”

Rupert studied her for a moment, the same dubious thoughts about her sanity no doubt occurring to him. Then he sighed and removed his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose before putting them back on. “I’d have to call in a few markers, but it could be done in as little as two days. William Giles, my nephew from England, who came over, let’s say, two years ago. That would make it less… unusual for me to be around as needed.”

He didn’t say it, but what the man was thinking was obvious. Why was Joyce choosing a bloody _vampire_ as a possible legal guardian for Dawn, and not him? _Because she’s gone ‘round the bloody bend, obviously._ That tumor was in her brain, and she’d already had flashes of crazy. Clearly this was all just a more lucid variety.

“You’re Buffy’s Watcher,” Joyce said quietly, proving that the tumor wasn’t impacting her observational skills, at least. “You’re a father figure to her, but if I… if I die, and you come sweeping in to take care of everything….”

“It would feel as if I’m trying to take your place.”

“Whereas I already bloody live here,” Spike said with a sigh. He stopped his pacing to look at the woman on the bed. Maybe she hadn’t gone as sack of hammers as he’d thought. “All I’d be doing is stepping up to help out around the place. Bein’ Dawn’s legal guardian would be a way to keep her in her home with us, not someone else moving in to take your place.”

“Exactly. Though….” She hesitated. “Buffy is a related adult.”

Oh, god, _there_ was a disaster just waiting to happen. Buffy was more than capable of taking care of the little bit, but with everything else….

“She’d shut down,” he said bluntly. “Everything she’s juggling right now, and if she lost you…. If she felt like she had to play mum to her sister, you’d end up with a slayer in burn out.”

And that way led to the possibility of her flirting entirely too close to the edge of a death wish. He didn’t say the words, just gave Rupert a look. The grim one he got back was a pretty clear indication that the other man was on the same page.

“My nephew has been living in this house for a year,” the Watcher said, “tutoring your daughters in lieu of rent.” He glanced over at Spike. “I’ll need your education history, so it can be used as a base for your credentials. Joyce can put the guardianship recommendation into her will, and Dawn is old enough that her wishes would be taken into consideration in any custody hearing. However, if Hank or another family member should initiate that custody hearing….”

“Hank is an only child, and his parents are both dead. Mine travel too much to offer stability, and my sisters would trust my judgment. So Hank, who I haven’t even been able to get a hold of, would be the only issue. And, honestly, the chances of him actually showing any interest in his daughters is rather low.”

“Wanker,” Spike muttered.

That got a wry smile from Rupert. Seemed they both had the same stellar opinion of Joyce’s ex.

“Be that as it may, the possibility does still exist. I think, though, that we can work around it. My contacts are _very_ good at what they do. Within forty-eight hours, we’ll have a legal identity for Spike beyond all reproach, along with a forged document stating that Hank agrees that custody of Dawn should go to Spike in order to cause as little disruption as possible to her life. The language used will ensure that, should he fight it, he will come across as indecisive and unwilling to put Dawn’s wellbeing above his own wants. That, coupled with Dawn’s own wishes would mean that – as long she’s doing well in this environment – Child Services would be reluctant to remove her from her home.”

“Well, then, that’s all sorted, isn’t it?” Spike grumbled.

He felt… odd about it all. Unsettled. He wasn’t exactly adverse to the idea of taking care of the Nibblet. Already was to an extent, wasn’t he? And he’d always been the sort to enjoy being needed. But this…. Just being entrusted with someone’s child, as if it was the most logical thing in the world.

“Will you do this?” Joyce asked, looking right into his eyes. “Will you take care of my baby? Both of my babies?”

He imagined them in trouble. Dawn feeling rudderless and alone. Buffy in over her head and drowning in it all. Would he do his damnedest to take care of them, with their mum gone and a crazy woman after the Bit? There was only one possible answer to that.

“Until the end of the world.”

**...**

_Now:_

Water and a protein bar a little less than fifteen minutes after the Gatorade and snacks. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to having to use the bathroom in this place, but she needed to keep hydrated. Especially with Spike pacing around the room restlessly and scratching at his wrist. It could have just been itchiness from healing, but Buffy wasn’t going to count on it.

She glanced at the band-aid slapped over the puncture wound on her hand. It had been a small enough puncture – just big enough for a vampire to suck from – so it was probably mostly healed by now. She’d gone for the hand because of the slayer dream. All that Manus Dextra stuff…. Except, Manus Sinistra had been shown, too, and Spike’s left hand hadn’t been involved at all. It wasn’t even where he’d been bitten.

She took a deep breath and blew it out up into her hair. Even with Spike helping with the interpretation, slayer dreams tended to be designed so they only made perfect sense in hindsight. But she _had_ had his help interpreting this one, and they’d both had different versions of the same dream. If they couldn’t get perfect twenty-twenty vision of the whole thing in time, maybe they’d be able to squeak by with a strong seventeen-twenty instead.

The sound of Spike opening up some kind of granola bar caught her attention, a feeling of dread dropping down on her like a two-ton weight. Was the infection winning again, hunger compelling him to eat whatever was available, even if it wouldn’t actually do anything to help? Or….

He took a bite, rolling it from one side of his mouth to the other as he took a moment to enjoy the mouthfeel of something solid. A couple of chews before letting it rest on his tongue to take in the flavor. Then a few more chews followed by swallowing.

_Oh, thank God, _Buffy thought, knees going weak with relief. It wasn’t the virus. Just Spike being Spike. He was always popping something or other into his mouth. Cheese crackers, cereal, hot wings. Just about anything battered and fried. The pineapple chunks and cottage cheese she’d set out for her breakfast…. If he was bored or nervous, pretty much anything was fair game to be munched.

She finished off the bottle of water, watching him nibble and pace while she ignored the vague urge to yell at him for wasting food that the survivors would need. She’d realized after Mom’s death that cooking and eating human food helped him deal with stress. If a granola bar or two could do anything to take his mind off of the virus, she wasn’t going to argue.

Especially when she was pretty sure there wouldn’t be that many survivors. Not after everything Marvin had told her.

Spike stopped suddenly, his head tilted slightly as he went into a moment of that utter stillness only a vampire could manage. “Sounds like we’ve a little mousie scurrying about,” he murmured, staring at the door across from the one they’d come in through.

Then he moved, rushing forward to throw the door open before darting through it. There was the sound of things falling over, followed by a high-pitched scream and British swearing. Less than a minute later, Spike herded a young girl back through the door without actually touching her and risking setting off the chip.

Short blonde hair with a headband tucked behind her ears. A blue and white checkered vest over a short-sleeved button up shirt. Black shorts and a pair of tennis shoes over long black socks. It was the girl they’d both seen in the slayer dreams. The one that the G-mutant was going to be chasing after just as much as Spike.

Buffy had tried not to think too much about the mutant. Had even managed to completely forget about it since it hadn’t shown up yet. Now, though….

Adam had been intelligent and cunning. When Willow and Tara had layered spells all over the house to keep him from being able to find Spike, he’d gone on to a plan B. But Riley… Riley had been mindless, attacking and attempting to make more G-mutants out of everyone he came across until Spike had left the safety of the house.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, shuddering at the memories. God, she didn’t want to think about any of this right now. No choice, though.

If the current mutant was like Adam, they were in deep shit. Honestly, though, Spike’s dream had shown a desperate and wounded man injecting himself. Unless he just happened to have a G-virus control chip implanted, he was going to be more like Riley. And this mutant had two people it could sense as perfect for making more mutants. While they’d’ been apart, it would have been confused, possibly held immobile by not knowing which one to go after.

Now, though…. Just leaving the girl to take care of herself wasn’t an option Buffy was willing to consider. Neither was leaving Spike to wander around on his own to possibly turn into a zombie from the T-virus. The G-mutant was pretty much guaranteed to come for them, and they were just going to have to deal with it.

She took a deep breath before slowly approaching the obviously terrified girl. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Buffy, and he’s Spike. What’s your name?”

“Sh-Sherry Birkin.” Still scared, but some of the tension was gone as she realized they probably weren’t going to hurt her.

“Well, Sherry, there are a lot of monsters out there, but we know how to fight monsters, okay?”

The girl nodded and flashed a nervous smile. They looked different, and Sherry was at least a couple of years younger, but something about that look was so much like Dawn. _At least she’s safe back in the RV, _Buffy thought as she smiled back.

“Stay with us, and we’ll get you out safe,” she said, hoping she wasn’t making promises she couldn’t keep.

**...**

Hands reached for her, decayed fingers scrabbling at her clothes, catching at her hair. Had to keep them back. Keep them away while Giles reloaded. The crowbar swung, breaking the grasping hands, smashing in heads. Too many. There were too many, and Giles was taking too long. She couldn’t–

Three bangs. One right after the other. Heads exploded, sending bits of brain, blood, and bone splattering everywhere.

Three more shots rang out, then Giles grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into an alley. Except for them and two freshly shot zombies, the alley was empty. Safe. For now anyways. Dawn sat against the wall, closing her eyes as she caught her breath.

“How much farther?” she asked after a few minutes.

He hesitated before answering. “Another five miles, I think.”

Another five…. She swallowed hard and opened her eyes. Another five miles. Through a city crawling with the undead. _You survived just fine in Sunnydale,_ she reminded herself, very determinedly _not_ thinking about the fact that they were currently on the run from there. _You can survive this._

A few more minutes to rest, and then they were back out on the streets of Raccoon City, making their way towards the police station.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the long time between this chapter and the one before. Some people decided to try to keep me from writing, and then I had some health issues, including a hospitalization for a blood transfusion. I'll try to get future chapters out in a more timely manner.


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